/ 




THE WOODEN MAN. 

[6,000 TEAKS OLD.] 



MY WINTER ON THE NILE 



AMONG , THE 



MUMMIES AND MOSLEMS. 



BV 



CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, 

AUTHOB OB" " MT SuMMEB IN A GARDEN," " BACK-LOG STUDIES," ETC. 



ISSUED BY SUBSCRIPTION ONLY, AND NOT FOR BALE IN BOOK-STORES. 
RESIDENTS OF ANY. STATE DESIRING A COPY SHOULD ADDRESS THE PUBLISHERS AB BELOW. 



y • \ 



V 



HARTFORD, CONN., ^— — — '^ 

AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY; 

1876. 




f\\X) i f 



copyright 

By American Publishing Co. 

1876. 



0/ 



K 



O 



O Commander of the Faithful^ Egypt is a eompound of black earth and 
green plants ^between a pulverized vioimtain and a red satid. Alotig the valley 
descends a river, on which the blessing of the Most High reposes both in the 
evening a. id the morning, and which rises attd falls tuith the revolutions of the 
sun and moon. According to the vicissitudes of the seasons, the face of the 
country is adorned with a silver wave, a verdant emerald, and the deep yellow 
of a golden harvest. 

From Amrou, Conqueror of Egypt, to the Khalif Omar. 



TO 

MR. A. C. DUNHAM, 

AND THE 

Voyagers on the Dahabeeh " Rip Van Winkle," 

TttIS 

Imperfect Record of their Experience 

IS 

DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 



There is in the Accademia at Venice, a picture, painted by Paris Bordone 
representing what was considered at the time a miracle. A poor fisherman 
of the Lido, hauling his net one morning, took a fish that had in his stomach 
the gold ring with which the Doge had wed the Adriatic a few months before 
The honest fellow carried the ring, thus miraculously rescued from the maw 
of the sea, to the Doge, and the council considered the event so remarkable 
and of such propitious augury that they ordered it to be commemorated on 
canvas. The picture represents the Doge upon his chair of state, surrounded 
by that gorgeous company of fine gentlemen with whom Paul Veronese has 
made us familiar, and the poor fisherman is ascending the steps of the throne 
and presenting the ring. 

I have no doubt the event happened. For the like had occuri-ed before. It 
is related that Polycrates of Samos had so much good fortune that his friend 
Amasis, king of Egypt, sent him a message and warned him that such pros- 
perity was perilous : " I would rather choose," he said, " that both I and those 
for whom I am solicitous, should be partly successful in our undertakings and 
partly suffer reverses," and, accordingly, to avert divine jealousy, he advised 
him to cast away that which he valued most. Polycrates took his advice. 
The most precious thing he possessed was a seal, made of an emerald, set in 
gold, the cunning workmanship of a Samian named Theodorus. Having 
manned his fifty-oared galley, he put out a considerable distance from the 
island, and taking off his seal, threw it into the sea. Six days thereafter a 
fishermen having caught a very large and beautiful fish, presented it to Poly- 
crates ; and his servants upon opening the fish found the ring When he 
learned of this piece of good fortune, Amasis withdrew his friendship from 
Polycrates, satisfied that a man so prosperous could not come to a good end. 



viii PREFACE. 

We shall look in vain for any new thing. The traveler in the Orient, 
I suppose, always hopes to find the precious ring or the seal, a long time lost : 
if he should chance upon it, its story would have been already narrated. 

Can one expect then to say anything new about Egypt? How many 
volumes, during two thousand years, have had this mysterious land for their 
theme ! The Amasis of whom I have spoken, sent a corselet to Croesus, made 
of linen, with many figures of animals inwrought, and adorned with gold and 
cotton-wool ; each thread of this corselet was worthy of admiration for though 
it was fine, it contained three hiindred and sixty threads, all distinct. A 
piece of linen found at Memphis had in each inch of warp, five hundred and 
forty threads, or two hundred and seventy double threads. I suppose that if 
the lines written about Egypt were laid over the country, every part of it 
would be covei'ed by as many as three hundred and sixty-five lines to the inch. 

New facts about Egypt need not be expected. A restinid of all that has 
been written, in one volume, is equally out of the question. Those who find 
here too many details of the ancient land, must remember how many they have 
been spared ; those who find too few, will perhaps thank me for sending them 
to the library. 

No one can be more sensible than I am of the shortcomings of this volume. 
One thing, however, I have earnestly endeavored to do : — to preserve the 
Oriental atmosphere. What we see in Egypt is the result of social, moral, 
and religious conditions, totally foreign to our experience, and not to be esti- 
mated by it. I tried to look at Egypt in its own atmosphere and not through 
ours, hoping thereby to be able to represent it, not photographically, but in 
something like its true colors and proper perspective. If I have succeeded in 

the slightest degree, I shall be satisfied. 

C. D. W. 

Venice, October, 1875. 




CHAPTER I. 

AT THE GATES OP THE EAST. 

PAOB. 

The Mediterranean— The East unlike the West— A "Vyorld risked for a 
"Woman— An Unchanging World and a Fickle Sea— Still an Orient 
— Old Fashions— A Journey without Reasons— Off for the Orient — 
Leaving Naples— A Shaky Court— A Deserted District— Ruins of 
Psestum — Temple of Neptune — Entrance to Purgatory — Safety 
Valves of the World— Enterprising Natives— Sunset on the Sea — 
Sicily— Crete— Our Passengers — The Hottest place on Record — An 
American Tourist— An Evangelical Dentist— On a Secret Mission 
— The Vanquished Dignitary 17 

CHAPTER IL 

WITHIN THE PORTALS. 

Africa— Alexandria— Strange Contrasts— A New World— Nature- 
First View of the Orient— Hotel Europe— Mixed Nationalities — 
The First Backsheesh — Street Scenes in Alexandria — Familiar Pic- 
tures Idealized— Cemetery Day— A Novel Turn Out— A Moslem 
Cemetery — New Terrors for Death — Pompey's Pillar — Our First 
Camel— Along the Canal— Departed Glory— A set of Fine Fellows 
— Our Handsome Dragomen — Bazaars — Universal Good Humor — 
A Continuous Holiday — Private life in Egypt — Invisible Blackness 
— The Land of Color and the Sun— A Casino 29 



CHAPTER III. 

EGYPT OF TO-DAY. 

Railways— Our ValiantDragomen — A Hand-to-Hand Struggle — Alexan- 
dria to Cairo — Artificial Irrigation— An Arab Village— The Nile — 
Egyptian Festivals— Pyramids of Geezeh— Cairo- Natural Queries. 43 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 



A Rhapsody— At Shepherd's— Hotel life, Egyptian plan— English Noble- 
men—Life in the Streets— The Valuable Donkey and his Driver — 
The "swell thing" in Cairo— A hint for Central Park- Eunuchs 
— "Yankee Doodles" of Cairo— A Representative Arab— Selecting 
Dragomen — The Great Business of Egypt— An Egyptian Market- 
place— A Substitute for Clothes— Dahabeehs of the Nile— A Pro- 
tracted Negotiation— Egyptian wiles 48 

CHAPTER V. 

ON THE BAZAAR. 

Sight Seeing in Cairo — An Eastern Bazaar — Courteous Merchants — 
The Honored Beggar — Charity to be Rewarded — A Moslem Funeral 
— The Gold Bazaar— Shopping for a Necklace — Conducting a Bride 
Home — A Partnership matter — Early Marriages and Decay — 
Longings for Youth 61 

CHAPTER VI. 

MOSQUES AND TOMBS. 

The Siroeco — The Desert— The Citadel of Cairo — Scene of the Massacre 
of the Memlooks — The World's Verdict — The Mosque of Moham- 
med Ali— Tomb of the Memlook Sultans — Life out of Death 73 

CHAPTER VII. 

MOSLEM WORSHIP — THE CALL TO PKAYER. 

An Enjoyable City — Definition of Conscience — "Prayer is better than 
Sleep "^Call of the Muezzin — Moslems at Prayer — Interior of a 
Slosque — Oriental Architecture — The Slipper Fitters — Devotional 
Washing — An Inman's Supplications 78 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PYKAMID9. 

Ancient Sepulchres — Grave Robbers — The Poor Old Mummy — The 
Oldest Monument in the World— First View of the Pyramids — The 
resident Bedawecn — Ascending the Steps — Patent Elevators — A 
View from the Top — The Guide's Opinions— Origin of "Murray's 
Guide Book" — Speculations on the Pyramids — The Interior — 
Absolute Night— A Taste of Death — The Sphinx — Domestic Life 
in a Tomb — Souvenirs of Ancient Egypt — Backsheesh! 85 



CONTENTS. xi 



CHAPTER IX. 

PKEPARATIOKS FOR A VOYAGE. 

A Weighty Question — The Seasons Bewitched — Poetic Dreams Realized 
— Egyptian Music — Public Garden — A Wonderful Rock — Its Pat- 
rons — The Playing Band — Native Love Songs — The Howling 
Derweeshes — An Exciting Performance — The Shakers put to 
Shame — Descendants of the Prophet — An Ancient Saracenic Home 
— The Land of the Flea and the Copt — Historical Curiosities — 
Preparing for our Journey — Laying in of Medicines and Rockets 
— A Determination to be Liberal — Official life in Egypt — An Inter- 
view with the Bey — Paying for our Rockets — A Walking Treasury 
—Waiting for Wind— . 100 

CHAPTER X. 

ON THE NILE. 

On Board the "Rip Van Winkle" — A Earcwell Dinner — The Three 
Months Voyage Commenced— On the Nile — Our Pennant's Device 
— Our Dahabeeh — Its Officers and Crew — Types of Egyptian Races 
— The Kingdom of the "Stick" — The false P^-ramid of Maydoon 
— A Night on the River — Curious Crafts — Boat Races on the Nile — 
Native Villages — Songs of the Sailors— Incidents of the Day — The 
Copts — The Patriarch — The Monks of Gebel e Tayr — Disappoint- 
ment all Round— A Royal Luxury— The Bunks of the Nile — Gum 
Arabic— Unfair Reports of us — Speed of our Dahabeeh — Egyptian 
Bread — Hasheesh-Smoking — Egyptian Robbers — Sitting in Dark- 
ness — Agriculture — Gathering of Taxes — Successful Voyaging. . . 116 

CHAPTER XI. 

PEOPLE ON THE RIVER BANK. 

Snnday on the Nile — A Calm — A Land of Tombs — A New Divinity — 
Burial of a Child — A Sunday Companion on Shore — A Philosophi- 
cal People —No Sunday Clothes — The Aristocratic Bedaween — The 
Sheykh — Rare Specimens for the Centennial — Tracts Needed — 
Woman's Rights — Pigeons and Cranes — Balmy Winter Nights — 
Tracking — Copying Nature in Dress — Resort of Crocodiles — A 
Hermit's Cave — Waiting for Nothing — Crocodile Mummies — The 
Boatmen's Song — Furling Sails — Life Again — Pictures on the Nile. 140 

CHAPTER XII. 

SPENDING CHRISTMAS ON THE NILE. 

Independence in Spelling — Asioot — Christmas Day — The American 
Consul — A Visit to the Pasha — Conversing by an Interpreter — The 
Ghawazees at Home — Ancient Sculpture — Bird's Eye View of the 
Nile — Our Christmas Dinner — Our Visitor — Grand Reception — The 
Fire Works— Christntas Eve on the Nile 156 



xii CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SIGHTS AND SCENES ON THE RIVER. 

Ancient and Modern Ruins— We Pay Toll— Cold Weather— Night Sail- 
ing— Farshoot — A Visit from the Bey— The Market-Place- The 
Sakiyas or Water Wheels — The Nile is Egypt 167 

CHAPTER XIV. 

MIDWINTER IN EGYPT. 

Midwinter in Egypt— Slaves of Time — Where the Water Jars are Made 
— Coming to Anchor and how it was Done — New Years — " Smits" 
Copper Popularity— Great Strength of the Women — Conscripts for 
the Army — Conscription a Good Thing — On the Threshold of 
Thebes 175 

CHAPTER XV. 

AMONG THE RUINS OF THEBES. 

Situation of the City — Ruins — Questions — Luxor — Karnak — Glorifica- 
tion of the Pharaohs — Sculptures in Stone — The Twin Colossi — Four 
Hundred Miles in Sixteen Days 186 

CllAPTER XVI. 

HISTORY IN STONE. 

A Dry City — A Strange Circumstance — A Pleasant Residence — Life on 
the Dahabeeh — Illustrious Visitors — Nose-Rings and Beauty — Little 
Fatimeh — A Mummy Hand and Thougiits upon it— Plunder of the 
Tombs — Exploits of tlie Great Sesostris — Gigantic Statues and 
their Object — Skill of Ancient Artists — Criticisms — Christian 
Churches and Pagan Temples — Society — A Peep into an Ancient 
Harem — Statue of Mertinon— Mysteries — Pictures of Heroic Girls 
— Women in History 193 

CHAPTER XVII. 



An Egyptian Carriage — Wonderful Ruins— The Great Hall of Sethi — 

The Largest Obelisk in The World— A City of Temples and Palaces. 212 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

ASCENDING THE RIVER. 

Ascending the River — An Exciting Boat Race — Inside a Sugar Factory 
— Setting Fire to a Town— Who Stole the Rockets ? — Striking Con- 
trasts — A Jail — The Kodi or eTudge — What we saw at Assouan — 
A Gale — Ruins of Kom Ombos — Mysterious Movement — Land of 
Eternal Leisure 217 



CONTENTS. xiii 

CHAPTER XIX. 

PASSING THE CATARACT OF THE NILE. 

Passing the Cataract of the Nile — Nubian Hills in Sight — Island of 
Elephantine — Ownership of the Cataract — Difficulties of the Ascent 
— Negotiations for a Passage — Items about Assouan — Off for the 
Cataracts — Our Cataract Crew— First Impressions of the Cataract 
— In the Stream — Excitement — Audacious Swimmers — Close Steer- 
ing— A Comical Orchestra — The Final Struggle — Victory — Above 
the Rapids — The Temple of Isis — Ancient Kings and Modern 
Conquerors 234 

CHAPTER XX. 

ON THE BORDERS OF THE DESERT. 

Ethiopia — Relatives of the Ethiopians — Negro Land — Ancestry of the 
Negro— Conversion Made Easy — A Land of Negative Blessings — 
Cool air from the Desert — Abd-el-Atti's Opinions — A Land of 
Comfort — Nubian Costumes — Turning the Tables — The Great 
Desert — Sin, Grease and Taxes 254 

. CHAPTER XXL 

ETHIOPIA. 

Primitive Attire — The Snafce Charmer — A House full of Snakes — A 
Writ of Ejectments — Natives — The Tomb of Mohammed — Disasters 
— A Dandy Pilate — Nubian Beauty — Opening a Baby's Eyes — A 
Nubian Pigville •. 263 

CHAPTER XXIL 

LIFE IN THE TROPICS WADY HALFA. 

Life in the Tropics — Wady Haifa — Capital of Nubia — The Centre of 
Fashion — The Southern Cross— Castor Oil Plantations — Justice to 
a Thief — Abd-el-Atti's Court — Mourning for the Dead — Extreme of 
our Journey — A Comical Celebration — The March of Civilization. 278 

CHAPTER XXIIL 

APPROACHING THE SECOND CATARACT. 

Two Ways to See It— Pleasures of Canal Riding — Bird's Eye View of 
the Cataracts — Signs of Wealth — Wady Haifa — A Nubian Belle — 
Classic Beauty — A Greek Bride — Interviewing a Crocodile — Joking 
witha Widow— A Model Village 287 



Xiv CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXI7. 

GIANTS IN STONE. 

Tke Colossi of Aboo Simble, the largest in the World — Bombast — . 
Exploits of Remeses II. — A Mysterious Temple — Feting Ancient 
Deities — Guardians of the Nile — The Excavated Rock — The Tem- 
ple — A Row of Sacred Monkeys — Our'Last View of The Giants. . 296 

CHAPTER XXV, 

FLITTING THROUGH NUBIA. 

Learning the Language — Models of Beauty — Cutting up a Crocodile — 
Egyptian Loafers — A Modern David — A Present — Our Menagerie — 
The Chameleon — Woman's Rights — False Prophets — Incidents — 
Tie School Master at Home — Confusion — Too Much Conversion — 
Charity— Wonderful Birds at Mecca 304 

CHAPTER XXVL 

MYSTERIOUS PHL^. 

Leave "well enough" Alone — The Myth of Osiris — The Heights of 
Biggeh — Cleopatra's Favorite Spot— A Legend — Mr. Fiddle- 
Dreamland — Waiting for a Prince — An Inland Excursion — Quarries 
—Adieu 320 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

RETURNING ; 

Downward Run — Kidnapping a Sheykh — Blessed with Relatives — Mak- 
ing the Chute — Artless Cliildren — A Model of Integrity — Justice — 
An Accident — Leaving Nubia — A Perfect Shame 332 

CHAPTER XXVIIL 

MODERN FACTS AND ANCIENT MEMORIES. 

The Mysterious Pebble — Ancient Quarries — Prodigies of Labor — Humor 
in Stone — A Simoon — Famous Gr.ottoes — Naughty Attractions — 
Bogus Relics — Antiquity Smith 343 

• CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE FUTURE OF THE MUMMY'S SOUL. 

Ancient Egyptian Literature— Mummies — A Visit to the Tombs — Dis- 
turbing the Dead — The Funeral Ritural — Unpleasant Explorations 
A Mummy in Pledge — A Desolate Way — Buried Secrets — Building 
for Eternity — Before the Judgment Seat — Weighed in the Balance 
The Habitation of the Dead — Illuminated — Accommodations for 

... the Mummy — The Pharaoh of the Exodus— A Baby Charon— Bats. 358 



CONTENTS. XV 

CHAPTER XXX. 

FAREWELL TO THEBES. 

Social Festivities— An Oriental Dinner— Dancing Girls— Honored by 
the Sultan— Tlie Native Consul — Finger Feeding — A Dance — 
Ancient Style of Dancing— The Poetry of Night— Karnak by Moon- 
light—Amusements at Luxor- Farewell to Thebes 375 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

LOITERING BY THE "WAT. 

*• Very Grammatick"— The Lying in Temple— A Holy Man— Scarecrows 
— Asinine Performers — Antiquity— Old Masters— Profit and Loss 
— Hopeless "Fellahs" — Lions Oil— A Bad Reputation— An Egyp- 
tian Mozart 387 

CHAPTER XXXIL 

JOTTINGS. 

Mission School— Education of Women— Contrasts— A Mirage— Tracks 
of Successive Ages — Bathers — Tombs of the Sacred Bulls— Relig- 
ion and Grammar— Route to Darfoor— Winter Residence of the 
Holy Family— Grottoes — Mistaken Views — Dust and Ashes — 
Osman Bey— A Midsummer's Niglit Dream— Ruins of Memphis — 
Departed Glory — A Second Visit to the Pyramids of Geezeh — An ■ 
Artificial Mother 406 

CHAPTER XXXIIL 

THE KHEDIVE. 

At Gezereh— Aboo Yusef the Owner — Cairo Again — A Question — The 
Khedive— Solomon and the Viceroy — The Khedive's Family Ex- 
penses — Another Joseph — Personal Government — Docks of Cairo — 
Raising Mud — Popular Superstitions — Leave Taking 426 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE WOODEN MAN. 

Visiting a Harem — A Reception — The Khedive at Home — Ladies of the 
Harem — Wife of Tufik Pasha — The Mummy— The Wooden Man 
Discoveries of Mariette Bey — Egypt and Greece Compared — 
Learned Opinions 440 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

ON THE WAY HOME. 

Leaving our Dahabeeh — The Baths in Cairo- Curious Mode of Execu- 
tion — The Guzeereh Palace — Empress Eugenia's Sleeping Room — 



XV i CONTENTS. 



Medallion of Benjamin Franklin in Egypt — Heliopolis — The 
Bedaween Bride — Holy Places — The Resting Place of the Virgin 
Mary — Fashionable Drives — The Shoobra Palace — Forbidden 
Books — A Glimpse of a Bevy of Ladies — Uncomfortable Guardians. 450 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

BY THE KED SEA. 

Following the Track of the Children of Israel — Routes to Suez — Tem- 
ples — Where was the Red Sea Crossed?— In sight of the Bitter 
Lakes— Approaching the Red Sea — Faith — The Suez Canal — The 
Wells of Moses — A Sentimental Pilgrimage — Price of one of the 
Wells — Miriam of Marah — Water of the Wells — Returning to Suez 
— A Caravan of Bedaweens — Lunch Baskets searched by Custom 
OflBlcers — The Commerce of the East 459 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

WESTWARD HO. 

Leaving Suez— Ismailia — The Lotus — A Miracle — Egyptian Steamer — 
Information Sought — The Great Highway— Port Said— Abd-el-Atti 
again — Great Honors Lost — Farewell to Egypt 471 



CHAPTER I. 



AT THE GATES OF THE EAST. 



THE Mediterranean still divides the East from the West^ 
Ages of traffic and intercourse across its waters have 
not changed this fact ; neither the going of armies nor 
of embassies, Northmen forays nor Saracenic maraudings. 
Christian crusades nor Turkish invasions, neither the 
borrowing from Egypt of its philosophy and science, nor the 
stealing of its precious monuments of antiquity, down to its 
bones, not all the love-making, slave-trading, war-waging, 
not all the commerce of four thousand years, by oar and sail 
and steam, have sufficed to make the East like the West. 

Half the world was lost at Actium, they like to say, for the 
sake of a woman ; but it was the half that I am convinced 
we never shall gain — for though the Romans did win it they 
did not keep it long, and they made no impression on it that 
is not compared with its own individuality, as stucco to granite. 
And I suppose there is not now and never will be another 
woman in the East handsome enough to risk a world for. 

There, across the most fascinating and fickle sea in the 
world — a feminine sea, inconstant as lovely, all sunshine and 
tears in a moment, reflecting in its quick mirror in rapid suc- 
cession the skies of grey and of blue, the weather of Europe 
and of Africa, a sea of romance and nausea — lies a world in 
everything unlike our own, a world perfectly known yet 
2 17 



18 A JOURNEY WITHOUT REASONS. 

never familiar and never otherwise than strange to the 
European and American. I had supposed it otherwise ; I had 
been led to think that modern civilization had more or less 
transformed the East to its own likeness; that, for instance the 
railway up the Nile had practically "done for" that historic 
stream. They say that if you run a red-hot nail through an 
orange, the fruit will keep its freshness and remain unchanged 
a long time. The thrusting of the iron into Egypt may 
arrest decay, but it does not appear to change the country. 

There is still an Orient, and I believe there would be if it 
were all canaled, and railwayed, and converted ; for I have 
great faith in habits that have withstood the influence of six 
or seven thousand years of changing dynasties and religions. 
Would you like to go a little way with me into this Orient 1 

The old-fashioned travelers had a formal fashion of setting 
before the reader the reasons that induced them to take the 
journey they described ; and they not unfrequently made poor 
health an apology for their wanderings, judging that that 
excuse would be most readily accepted for their eccentric 
conduct. " Worn out in body and mind we set sail," etc.; and 
the reader was invited to launch in a sort of funereal bark 
upon the Mediterranean and accompany an invalid in search 
of his last resting-place. 

There was in fact no reason w^hy we should go to Egypt— 
a remark that the reader will notice is made before he has a 
chance to make it— and there is no reason why any one 
indisposed to do so should accompany us. If information 
is desired, there are whole libraries of excellent books about 
the land of the Pharaohs, ancient and modern, historical, 
archaeological, statistical, theoretical, geographical ; if amuse- 
ment is -wanted, there are also excellent books, facetious 
and sentimental. I suppose that volumes enough have been 
written about Egypt to cover every foot of its arable soil if they 
were spread out, or to dam the Nile if they were dumped into 
it, and to cause a drought in either case if they were not all 
interesting and the reverse of dry. There is therefore no onus 
upon the traveler in the East to-day to write otherwise than 



OFF FOR THE ORIENT. 19 

suits his humor; he may describe only what he chooses. 
With this distinct understanding I should like the reader to go 
with me through a winter in the Orient. Let us say that we 
go to escape winter. 

It is the last of November, 1874 — the beginning of what 
proved to be the bitterest winter ever known in America and 
Europe, and I doubt not it was the first nip of the return of 
the rotary glacial period — that we go on board a little Italian 
steamer in the harbor of Naples, reaching it in a row-boat 
and in a cold rain. The deck is wet and dismal ; Vesuvius 
is invisible, and the whole sweep of the bay is hid by a 
slanting mist. Italy has been in a shiver for a month ; snow 
on the Alban hills and in the Tusculan theatre; Rome was 
as chilly as a stone tomb with the door left open. Naples is 
little better ; Boston, at any season, is better than Naples — now. 
We steam slowly down the harbor amid dripping ships, los- 
ing all sight of villages and the lovely coast ; only Capri comes 
out comely in the haze, an island cut like an antique cameo. 
Long after dark we see the light on it and also that of the 
Punta della Campanella opposite, friendly beams following 
us down the coast. We are off Psestum, and I can feel that 
its noble temple is looming there in the darkness. This 
ruin is in some sort a door into, an introduction to, the East. 
Psestum has been a deadly marsh for eighteen hundred 
years, and deserted for almost a thousand. Nettles and un- 
sightly brambles have taken the place of the "roses of Pses- 
tum " of iW,hich the Roman poets sang; but still as a poetic 
memory, the cyclamen trails among the debris of the old city ; 
and the other day I found violets waiting for a propitious sea- 
son to^ bloom. The sea has retired away from the site of the 
town and broadened the marsh in front of it. There are at 
Paestum three Greek temples, called, no one can tell why, the 
Temple of Neptune, the Basilica, and the Temple of Ceres ; 
remains of the old town wall and some towers; a tumble- 
down house or two, and a wretched tavern. The whole coast 
is subject to tremors of the earth,- and the few inhabitants 
hanging about there appear to have had all their bones 
shaken out of them by the fever and ague. 



20 A DESERTED DISTRICT. 

We went down one raw November morning from Naples, 
driving from a station on the Calabrian railway, called Batti- 
paglia, about twelve miles over a black marshy plain, relieved 
only by the bold mountains, on the right and left. This plain is 
gradually getting reclaimed and cultivated ; there is raised on 
it inferior cotton and some of the vile tobacco which the gov- 
ernment monopoly compels the free Italians to smoke, and 
large olive-orchards have been recently set out. The soil is 
rich and the country can probably be made habitable again. 
Now, the few houses are wretched and the few people squalid. 
Women were pounding stone on the road we traveled, even 
young girls among them wielding the heavy hammers, and 
all of them very thinly clad, their one sleazy skirt giving little 
protection against the keen air. Of course the women were 
hard-featured and coarse-handed ; and both they and the men 
have the swarthy complexion that may betoken a more East- 
ern origin. We fancied that they had a brigandish look. 
Until recently this plain has been a favorite field for brigands, 
who spied the rich traveler from the height of St. Angelo and 
pounced upon him if he was unguarded. Now, soldiers are 
quartered along the road, patrol the country on horseback, 
and lounge about the ruins at Paestum. Perhaps they retire 
to some height for the night, for the district is too unhealthy 
for an Italian even, v/hose health may be of no consequence. 
They say that if even an Englishman, who goes merely to shoot 
woodcock, sleeps there one night, in the right season, that 
night will be his last. 

We saw the ruins of Paestum under a cold grey sky, which 
harmonized with their isolation. We saw them best from the 
side of the sea, with the snow-sprinkled mountains rising be- 
hind for a background. Then they stood out, impressive, 
majestic, time-defying. In all Europe there are no ruins bet- 
ter worthy the study of the admirer of noble architecture than 
these. 

The Temple of Neptune is older than the Parthenon, its 
Doric sister, at Athens. It was probably built before the Per- 
sians of Xerxes occupied the Acropolis and saw from there 
the flight of their ruined fleet out of the Strait of Salamis. It 



AMONG THE RUINS OF P^STUAI. 21 

was built when the Doric had attained the acme of its severe 
majesty, and it is to-day almost perfect on the exterior. Its 
material is a coarse travertine which time and the weather 
have honeycombed, showing the petrifications of plants and 
shells ; but of its thirty-six massive exterior columns not 
one has fallen, though those on the north side are so worn by 
age that the once deep fluting is nearly obliterated. You may 
care to know that these columns which are thirty feet high 
and seven and a half feet in diameter at the base, taper sym- 
metrically to the capitals, which are the severest Doric. 

At first we thought the temple small, and did not even 
realize its two hundred feet of length, but the longer we looked 
at it the larger it grew to the eye, until it seemed to expand 
into gigantic size ; and from whatever point it was viewed its 
harmonious proportions were an increasing delight. The 
beauty is not in any ornament, for even the pediment is and 
always was vacant, but in its admirable lines. 

The two other temples are fine specimens of Greek archi- 
tecture, also Doric, pure and without fault, with only a little 
tendency to depart from severe simplicity in the curve of the 
capitals, and yet they did not interest us. They are of a pe- 
riod only a little later than the Temple of Neptune, and that 
model was before their builders, yet they missed the extraor- 
dinary, many say almost spiritual beauty of that edifice. We 
sought the reason, and found it in the fact that there are abso- 
lutely no straight lines in the Temple of Neptune. The side 
rows of columns curve a little out ; the end rows curve a lit- 
tle in ; at the ends the base line of the columns curves a trifle 
from the sides to the center, and the line of the architrave 
does the same. This may bewilder the eye and mislead the 
judgment as to size and distance, but the effect is more agreea- 
ble than almost any other I know in architecture. It is not 
repeated in the other temples, the builders of which do not 
seem to have known its secret. Had the Greek colony lost 
the art of this perfect harmony, in the little time that proba- 
bly intervened between the erection of these edifices ? It was 
still kept at Athens, as the Temple of Theseus and the Parthe- 
non testify. 



22 REPUTED ENTRANCE TO PURGATORY. 

Looking from the interior of the temple out at either end, 
the entrance seems to be wider at the top than at the bottom, 
an Egyptian effect produced by the setting of the inward and 
outer columns. This appeared to us like a door through 
which we looked into Egypt, that mother of all arts and of 
most of the devices of this now confused world. We were on 
our way to see the first columns, prototypes of the Doric order, 
chiselled by man. 

The custodian — there is one, now that twenty centuries of 
war and rapine and storms have wreaked themselves upon this 
temple — would not permit us to take our luncheon into its 
guarded precincts ; on a fragment of the old steps, amid the 
weeds we drank our red Capri wine ; not the usual compound 
manufactured at Naples, but the last bottle of pure Capri to be 
found on the island, so help the soul of the landlady at the 
hotel there; ate one of those imperfectly nourished Itahan 
chicken's orphan birds, owning the pitiful legs with which the 
table d'hote frequenters in Italy are so familiar, and blessed the 
government for the care, tardy as it is, of its grandest monument 
of antiquity. 

When I looked out of the port-hole of the steamer early in the 
morning, we were near the volcanic Lipari islands and islets, a 
group of seventeen altogether; which serve as chimneys and 
safety-valves to this part of the world. One of the small ones is 
of recent creation, at least it was heaved up about two thousand 
years ago, and I fancy that a new one may pop up here any 
time. From the time of the Trojan war all sorts of races and 
adventurers have fought for the possession of these coveted 
islands, and the impartial earthquake has shaken them all off in 
turn. But for the mist, we should have clearly seen Stromboli, 
the ever-active volcano, but now we can only say we saw it. 
We are near it, however, and catch its outline, and listen for the 
groans of lost souls which the credulous crusaders used to hear 
issuing from its depths. It was at that time the entrance of pur- 
gatory; we read in the guide-book that the crusaders implored 
the monks of Cluny to intercede for the deliverance of those 
confined there, and that therefore Odilo of Cluny instituted the 
observance of All Souls* Day. 



ENTERPRISING NA TIVES. 23 

The climate of Europe still attends us, and our first view of 
Sicily is through the rain. Clouds hide the coast and obscure 
the base of ^tna (which is oddly celebrated in America as an 
assurance against loss by fire); but its wide fields of snow, 
banked up high above the clouds, gleam as molten silver — 
treasure laid up in heaven — and give us the light of the rosy 
morning. 

Rounding the point of Faro, the locale of Charybdis and 
Scylla, we come into the harbor of Messina and take shelter 
behind the long, curved horn of its mole. Whoever shunned the 
beautiful Scylla was liable to be sucked into the strong tide 
Charybdis; but the rock has lost its terror for moderns, and the 
current is no longer dangerous. We get our last dash of rain in 
this strait, and there is sunny weather and blue sky at the south. 
The situation of Messina is picturesque ; the shores both of Cala- 
bria and Sicily are mountainous, precipitous and very rocky; there 
seems to be no place for vegetation except by terracing. The 
town is backed by lofty circling mountains, which form a dark 
setting for its white houses and the string of outlying villages. 
Mediaeval forts cling to the slopes above it. 

No sooner is the anchor down than a fleet of boats surrounds 
the steamer, and a crowd of noisy men and boys swarms on 
board, to sell us muscles, oranges, and all sorts of merchandise, 
from a hair-brush to an under-wrapper. The Sunday is hope- 
lessly broken into fragments in a minute. These lively traders 
use the English language and its pronouns with great freedom. 
The boot-black smilingly asks : " You black my boot.? " 

The vender of under-garments says : " I gif you four franc 
for dis one. I gif you for dese two a seven franc. No .? What 
you gif? " 

A bright orange-boy, we ask, "How much a dozen.'' " 

"Half franc." 

"Too much." 

" How much you give ? Tast him ; he ver good ; a sweet 
orange ; you no like, you no buy. Yes, sir. Tak one. This a 
one, he sweet no more." 

And they were sweet no more. They must have been lemons 
in oranges* clothing. The flattering tongue of that boy and oiir 



24- SUM SET ON THE SEA. 

greed of tropical color made us owners of a lot of them, most of 
which went overboard before we reached Alexandria, and would 
make fair lemonade of the streak of water we passed through. 

At noon we sail away into the warm south. We have before 
us the beautiful range of Aspromonte, and the village of Reggio 
near which in 1862 Garibaldi received one of his wounds, a 
sort of inconvenient love-pat of fame. The coast is rugged 
and steep. High up is an isolated Gothic rock, pinnacled and 
jagged. Close by the shore we can trace the railway track 
which winds round the point of Italy, and some of the passengers 
look at it longingly; for though there is clear sky overhead, the 
sea has on an ungenerous swell ; and what is blue sky to a 
stomach that knows its own bitterness and feels the world 
sinking away from under it .-* 

We are long in sight of Italy, but Sicily still sulks in the 
clouds and Mount ^tna will not show itself. The night is 
bright and the weather has become milder; it is the prelude to 
a day calm and uninteresting. Nature rallies at night, however, 
and gives us a sunset in a pale gold sky with cloud-islands on 
the horizon and palm-groves on them. The stars come out in 
extraordinary profusion and a soft brilliancy unknown in New 
England, and the sky is of a tender blue — something delicate 
and not to be enlarged upon. A sunset is something that no 
one will accept second-hand. 

On the morning of December ist., we are off Crete; Greece we 
have left to the north, and are going at ten knots an hour 
towards great hulking Africa. We sail close to the island and 
see its long, high barren coast till late in the afternoon. There 
is no road visible on this side, nor any sign of human habitation, 
except a couple of shanties perched high up among the rocks. 
From this point of view, Crete is a mass of naked rock lifted out 
of the waves. Mount Ida crowns it, snow-capped and gigantic. 
Just below Crete spring up in our geography the little islands of 
Gozo and Antigozo, merely vast rocks, with scant patches of 
low vegetation on the cliffs, a sort of vegetable blush, a few 
stunted trees on the top of the first, and an appearance of grass 
which has a reddish color. 



OUR PASSENGERS. 25 



The weather is more and more delightful, a balmy atmos- 
phere brooding on a smooth sea. The chill which we carried in 
our bones from New York to Naples finally melts away. Life 
ceases to be a mere struggle, and becomes a mild enjoyment. 
The blue tint of the sky is beyond all previous comparison 
delicate, like the shade of a silk, fading at the horizon into an 
exquisite grey or nearly white. We are on deck all day and till 
late at night, for once enjoying, by the help of an awning, real 
winter weather with the thermometer at seventy-two degrees. 

Our passengers are not many, but selected. There are a Ger- 
man baron and his sparkling wife, delightful people, who handle 
the English language as delicately as if it were glass, and make 
of it the most naive and interesting form of speech. They are 
going to Cairo for the winter, and the young baroness has the 
longing and curiosity regarding the land of the sun, which is 
peculiar to the poetical Germans ; she has never seen a black 
man nor a palm-tree. In charge of the captain, there is an 
Italian woman, whose husband lives in Alexandria, who monop- 
olizes the whole of the ladies' cabin, by a league with the slatternly 
stewardess, and behaves in a manner to make a state of war 
and wrath between her and the rest of the passengers. There is 
nothing bitterer than the hatred of people for each other on 
shipboard. When I afterwards saw this woman in the streets of 
Alexandria I had scarcely any wish to shorten her stay upon 
this earth. There are also two tough-fibered and strong-brained 
dissenting ministers from Australia, who have come round by the 
Sandwich Islands and the United States, and are booked for 
Palestine, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, Speaking of Aden, 
which has the reputation of being as hot as Constantinople is 
wicked, one of them tells the story of an American (the English 
have a habit of fastening all their dubious anecdotes upon "an 
American ") who said that if he owned two places, one in Aden 

and the other in H , he would sell the one in Aden, These 

ministers are distinguished lecturers at home — a solemn thought, 
that even the most distant land is subjected to the blessing of the 
popular lecture. 

Our own country is well represented, as it usually is abroad, 



26 AN EVANGELICAL DENTIST. 

whether by appointment or self-selection. It is said that the 
oddest people in the world go up the Nile and make the pilgrim- 
age of Palestine. I have even heard that one must be a little 
cracked who will give a whole winter to high Egypt ; but this is 
doubtless said by those who cannot afford to go. Notwithstand- 
ing the peculiarities of so many of those one meets drifting 
around the East (as eccentric as the English who frequent Italian 
pensions) it must be admitted that a great many estimable and 
apparently sane people go up the Nile — and that such are 
even found among Cook's " personally conducted." 

There is on board an American, or a sort of Irish-American 
more or less naturalized, from Nebraska, a raw-boned, hard- 
featured farmer, abroad for a two-years' tour; a man who has no 
guide-book or literature, except the Bible which he diligently 
reads. He has spent twenty or thirty years in acquiring and 
subduing land in the new country, and without any time or taste 
for reading, there has come with his possessions a desire to see 
that old world about which he cared nothing before he breathed 
the vitalizing air of the West. That he knew absolutely nothing 
of Europe, Asia, or Africa, except the little patch called Pales- 
tine, and found a day in Rome too much for a place so run 
down, was actually none of our business. He was a good patri- 
otic American, and the only wonder was that with his qualifi- 
cation he had not been made consul somewhere. 

But a more interesting person, in his way, was a slender; no- 
blooded, youngish, married man, of the vegetarian and vegetable 
school, also alone, and bound for the Holy Land, who was sick of 
the sea and otherwise. He also was without books of travel, and 
knew nothing of what he was going to see or how to see it. Of 
what Egypt was he had the dimmest notion, and why we or he or 
anyone else should go there. What do you go up the Nile for ? 
we asked. The reply was that the Spirit had called him to go 
through Egypt to Palestine. He had been a dentist, but now 
he called himself an evangelist. I made the mistake of supposing 
that he was one of those persons who have a call to go about and 
convince people that religion is one part milk (skimmed) and 
three parts water — harmless, however, unless you see too much 



AN IMPENDING CHANGE. 2% 

of them. Twice is too much. But I gauged him inadequately. 
He is one of those few who comprehend the future, and, guided 
wholly by the Spirit and not by any scripture or tradition, his 
mission is to prepare the world for its impending change. He 
is en rapport with the vast uneasiness, which I do not know how 
to name, that pervades all lands. He had felt our war in 
advance. He now feels a great change in the air ; he is illumin- 
ated by an inner light that makes him clairvoyant. America 
is riper than it knows for this change. I tried to have him 
definitely define it, so that I could write home to my friends and 
the newspapers and the insurance companies ; but I could only 
get a vague notion that there was about to be an end of armies 
and navies and police, of all forms of religion, of government, of 
property, and that universal brotherhood is to set in. 

The evangelist had come aboard on an important and rather 
secret mission; to observe the progress of things in Europe; and 
to publish his observations in a book. Spiritualized as he was, 
he had no need of any language except the American ; he felt 
the political and religious atmosphere of all the cities he visited 
without speaking to any one. When he entered a picture gal- 
lery, although he knew nothing of pictures, he saw more than 
any one else. I suppose he saw more than Mr. Ruskin sees. 
He told me, among other valuable information, that he found 
Europe not so well prepared for the great movement as America, 
but that I would be surprised at the number who were in sym- 
pathy with it, especially those in high places in society and in 
government. The Roman Catholic Church was going to pieces ; 
not that he cared any more for this than for the Presbyterian — 
he, personally, took what was good in any church, but he had 
got beyond them all; he was now only working for the estab- 
lishment of the truth, and it was because he had more of the 
truth than others that he could see further. 

He expected that America would be surprised when he pub- 
lished his observations. "I can give you a little idea," he said, 
"of how things are working." This talk was late at night, and 
by the dim cabin lamp. "When I was in Rome, I went to see 
the head-man of the Pope. I talked with him over an hour, and. 
I found that he knew all about it ! " 



28 THE VANQUISHED DIGNITARY. 

" Good gracious ! You don't say so ! " 

" Yes, sir. And he is in full sympathy. But he dare not say 

anything. He knows that his church is on its last legs. I told 

. him that I did not care to see the Pope, but if he wanted to 

meet me, and discuss the infallibility question, I was ready for 

him." 

"What did the Pope's head-man say to that.? " 

" He said that he would see the Pope, and see if he could 
arrange an interview; and would let me know. I waited a week 
in Rome, but no notice came. I tell you the Pope don't dare 
discuss it." 

" Then he didn't see you .' " 

"No, sir. But I wrote him a letter from Naples." 

" Perhaps he won't answer it." 

"Well, if he doesn't, that is a confession that he can't. He 
leaves the field. That will satisfy me." 

I said I thought he would be satisfied. 

The Mediterranean enlarges on acquaintance. On the fourth 
day we are still without sight of Africa, though the industrious 
screw brings us nearer every moment. We talk of Carthage, and 
think we can see the color of the Libyan sand in the yellow 
clouds at night. It is two o'clock on the morning of December 
the third, when we make the Pharos of Alexandria, and wait for 
a pilot. 




CHAPTER II. 



WITHIN THE PORTALS. 



EAGERNESS to see Africa brings us on deck at dawn. 
The low coast is not yet visible. Africa, as we had 
been taught, lies in heathen darkness. It is the policy of 
the Egyptian government to make the harbor difficult of access 
to hostile men-of-war, and we, who are peacefully inclined, 
cannot come in till daylight, nor then without a pilot. 

The day breaks beautifully, and the Pharos is set like a star 
in the bright streak of the East. Before we can distinguish 
land, we see the so-called Pompey's Pillar and the light-house, 
the palms, the minarets, and the outline of the domes painted 
on the straw-color of the sky — a dream-like picture. The cur- 
tain draws up with Eastern leisure — the sun appears to rise more 
deliberately in the Orient than elsewhere ; the sky grows more 
brilliant, there are long lines of clouds, golden and crimson, and 
we seem to be ■ looking miles and miles into an enchanted 
country. Then ships and boats, a vast number of them, become 
visible in the harbor, and as the light grows stronger, the city 
and land lose something of their beauty, but the sky grows more 
softly fiery till the sun breaks through. The city lies low along 
the flat coast, and seems at first like a brownish white streak, 
with fine lines of masts, palm-trees, and minarets above it. 

The excitement of the arrival in Alexandria and the novelty 
of everything connected with the landing can never be repeated. 
In one moment the Orient flashes upon the bewildered traveler ; 
and though he may travel far and see stranger sights, and pene- 
trate the hollow shell of Eastern mystery, he never will see again 

29 



30 A NEW WORLD. 



at once such a complete contrast to all his previous experience. 
One strange, unfamiliar form takes the place of another so 
rapidly that there is no time to fix an impression, and everything 
is so bizarre that the new-comer has no points of comparison. 
He is launched into a new world, and has no time to adjust the 
focus of his observation. For myself, I wished the Orient would 
stand off a little and stand still so that I could try to comprehend 
it. But it would not ; a revolving kaleidoscope never presented 
more bewildering figures and colors to a child, than the port of 
Alexandria to us. 

Our first sight of strange dress is that of the pilot and the crew 
who bring him off — they are Nubians, he is a swarthy Egyptian. 
" How black they are," says the Baroness; "I don't like it." 
As the pilot steps on deck, in his white turban, loose robe of 
cotton, and red slippers, he brings the East with him ; we pass 
into the influence of the Moslem spirit. Coming into the harbor 
we have pointed out to us the batteries, the palace and harem 
of the Pasha (more curiosity is felt about a harem than about 
any other building, except perhaps a lunatic asylum), and the 
new villas along the curve of the shore. It is difficult to see any 
ingress, on account of the crowd of shipping. 

The anchor is not down before we are surrounded by row- 
boats, six or eight deep on both sides, with a mob of boatmen 
and guides, all standing up and shouting at us in all the broken 
languages of three continents. They are soon up the sides and 
on deck, black, brown, yellow, in turbans, in tarbooshes, in robes 
of white, blue, brown, in brilliant waist-shawls, slippered, and 
bare-legged, bare-footed, half-naked, with little on except a pair 
of cotton drawers and a red fez, eager, big-eyed, pushing, yelp- 
ing, gesticulating, seizing hold of passengers and baggage, and 
fighting for the possession of the traveler's goods which seem to 
him about to be shared among a lot of pirates. I saw a dazed 
traveler start to land, with some of his traveling-bags in one 
boat, his trunk in a second, and himself in yet a third, and a 
commissiotiaire at each arm attempting to drag him into two 
others. He evidently couldn't make up his mind, which to 
take. 



FIRST VIEW OF THE ORIENT. 31 

We have decided upon our hotel, and ask for the commission- 
aire of it. He appears. In fact there are twenty or thirty of 
him. The first one is a tall, persuasive, nearly naked Ethiop, 
who declares that he is the only Simon Pure, and grasps our hand- 
bags. Instantly, a fluent, business-like Alexandrian pushes 
him aside — "I am the commissionaire" — and is about to take 
possession of us. But a dozen others are of like mind, and 
Babel begins. We rescue our property, and for ten minutes a 
lively and most amusing altercation goes on as to who is the 
representative of the hotel. They all look like pirates from the 
Barbary coast, instead of guardians of peaceful travelers. Quar- 
tering an orange, I stand in the center of an interesting group, 
engaged in the most lively discussion, pushing, howling and 
fiery gesticulation. The dispute is finally between two : 

"/Hotel Europe!" 

" / Hotel Europe ; he no hotel." 

" He my brother, all same m.e." 

"He! I never see he before," with a shrug of the utmost 
contempt. 

As soon as we select one of them, the tumult subsides, the 
enemies become friends and cordially join in loading our lug- 
gage. In the first five minutes of his stay in Egypt the traveler 
learns that he is to trust and be served by people who haven't 
the least idea that lying is not a perfectly legitimate means of 
attaining any desirable end. And he begins to lose any preju- 
dice he may have in favor of a white complexion and of clothes. 
In a decent climate he sees how little clothing is needed for 
comfort, and how much artificial nations are accustomed to put 
on from false modesty. 

We begin to thread our way through a maze of shipping, and 
hundreds of small boats and barges ; the scene is gay and exciting 
beyond expression. The first sight of the colored, pictured, 
lounging, waiting Orient is enough to drive an impressionable 
person wild ; so much that is novel and picturesque is crowded 
into a few minutes ; so many colors and flying robes, such a 
display of bare legs and swarthy figures. We meet flat boats 
coming down the harbor loaded with laborers, dark, immobile 



32 MIXED NA TIONALITIES, 

groups in turbans and gowns, squatting on deck in the attitude 
which is the most characteristic of the East; no one stands or 
sits — everybody squats or reposes cross-legged. Soldiers are on 
the move ; smart Turkish officers dart by in light boats with half a 
dozen rowers, the crew of an English mart-of-war pull past ; in 
all directions the swift boats fly, and with their freight of color, 
it is like the thrusting of quick shuttles, in the weaving of a 
brilliant carpet, before our eyes. 

We step on shore at the Custom-House. I have heard trav- 
elers complain of the delay in getting through it. I feel that 
I want to go slowly, that I would like to be all day in getting 
through — that I am hurried along like a person who is drag- 
ged hastily through a gallery, past striking pictures of which 
he gets only glimpses. What a group this is on shore ; im- 
portunate guides, porters, coolies. They seize hold of us. 
We want to stay and look at them. Did ever any civilized 
men dress so gaily, so little, or so much in the wrong place ? 
If that fellow would untwist the folds of his gigantic turban 
he would have cloth enough to clothe himself perfectly. 
Look ! that's an East Indian, that's a Greek, that's a Turk 
that's a Syrian-Jew? No, he's Egyptian, the crook-nose is 
not uncommon to Egyptians, that tall round hat is Persian, 
that one is from Abys — there they go, we havn't half seen 
them ! We leave our passports at the entrance, and are whisk- 
ed through into the baggage-room, where our guide pays a 
noble official three francs for the pleasure of his chance ac- 
quaintance ; some nearly naked coolie-porters, who bear long 
cords, carry off our luggage, and before we know it we are in 
a carriage, and a rascally guide and interpreter — Heaven 
knows how he 'fastened himself upon us in the last five min- 
utes — is on the box and apparently owns us .'* (It took us half 
a day and liberal backsheesh to get rid of the evil-eyed fellow) 
We have gone only a little distance when half a dozen of 
the naked coolies rush after us, running by the carriage and 
laying hold of it, demanding backsheesh. It appears that 
either the boatman has cheated them, or they think he will, or 
they havn't had enough. Nobody trusts anybody else, and 



STREET SCENES IN ALEXANDRIA. 33 

nobody is ever satisfied with what he gets, in Egypt, These 
blacks, in their dirty white gowns, swinging their porter's 
ropes and howling like madmen, pursue us a long way and 
look as if they would tear us in pieces. But nothing coraes of 
it. We drive to the Place Mehemet Ali, the European square, 
— having nothing Oriental about it, a square with an eques- 
trian statue of Mehemet Ali, some trees and a fountain — 
surrounded by hotels, bankers' offices and Frank shops. 

There is not much in Alexandria to look at except the peo- 
ple, and the dirty bazaars. We never before had seen so much 
nakedness, filth and dirt, so much poverty, and such enjoy- 
ment of it, or at least indifference to it. We were forced to 
strike a new scale of estimating poverty and wretchedness. 
People are poor in proportion as their wants are not gratified. 
And here are thousands who have few of the wants that we 
have, and perhaps less poverty. It is difficult to estimate the 
poverty of those fortunate children to whom the generous sun 
gives a warm color for clothing, who have no occupation but to 
sit in the same, all day, in some noisy and picturesque thorough- 
fare, and stretch out the hand for the few paras sufficient to 
buy their food, who drink at the public fountain, wash in the 
tank of the mosque, sleep in street-corners, and feel sure of 
their salvation if they know the direction of Mecca. And the 
Mohammedan religion seems to be a sort of soul-compass, by 
which the most ignorant believer can always orient himself. 
The best-dressed Christian may feel certain of one thing, that 
he is the object of the cool contempt of the most naked, 
opthalmic, flea-attended, wretched Moslem he meets. The 
Oriental conceit is a peg above ours — it is not self-conscious. 

In a fifteen minutes walk in the streets the stranger finds 
all the pictures that he remembers in his illustrated books of 
Eastern life. There is turbaned Ali Baba, seated on the hind- 
quarters of his sorry donkey, swinging his big feet in a con- 
stant effort to urge the beast forward ; there is the one-eyed 
calender who may have arrived last night from Bagdad ; there 
is the water-carrier, with a cloth about his loins, staggering 
under a full goat-skin — the skin, legs, head, and all the mem- 



34: BEHIND THE VEIL. 



bers of the brute distended, so that the man seems to be carry- 
ing a drowned and water-soaked animal ; there is the veiled 
sister of Zobeide riding a grey donkey astride, with her knees 
drawn up, (as all women ride in the East), entirely enveloped 
in a white garment which covers her head and puffs out about 
her like a balloon — all that can be seen of the woman are the 
toes of her pointed yellow slippers and two black eyes ; there 
is the seller of sherbet, a waterish, feeble, insipid drink,' clink- 
ing his glasses ; and the veiled woman in black, with hungry 
eyes, is gliding about everywhere. The veil is in two parts, 
a band about the forehead, and a strip of black which hangs 
underneath the eyes and terminates in a point at the waist ; the 
two parts are connected by an ornamented cylinder of brass, 
or silver if the wearer can afford it, two and a half inches long 
and an inch in diameter. This ugly cylinder between the 
restless eyes, gives the woman an imprisoned, frightened 
look. Across the street from the hotel, upon the stone coping 
of the public square, is squatting hour after hour in the sun, 
a row of these forlorn creatures in black, impassive and wait- 
ing. We are told that they are washerwomen waiting for a 
job. I never can remove the impression that these women are 
half stifled behind their veils and the shawls which they draw 
over the head ; when they move their heads, it is like the pit- 
eous dumb movement of an uncomplaining animal. 

But the impatient reader is waiting for Pompey's Pillar. We 
drive outside the walls, though a thronged gateway, through 
streets and among people wretched and picturesque to the 
last degree. This is the road to the large Moslem cemetery, 
and to-day is Thursday, the day for visiting the graves. The 
way is lined with coffee-shops, where men are smoking and 
playing at draughts ; with stands and booths for the sale of 
fried cakes and confections ; and all along, under foot, so 
that it is difficult not to tread on them, are private markets for 
the sale of dates, nuts, raisins, wheat, and doora ; the bare-leg- 
ged owner sits on the ground and spreads his dust-covered 
untempting fare on a straw mat before him. It is more 
wretched and forlorn outside the gate than within. We are 



A MOSLEM CEMETERY. 35 

amid heaps of rubbish, small mountains of it, perhaps the 
ruins of old Alexandria, perhaps only the accumulated sweep- 
ings of the city for ages, piles of dust, and broken pottery. 
Every Egyptian town of any size is surrounded by these — the 
refuse of ages of weary civilization. 

What a number of old men, of blind men, ragged men — 
though rags are no disgrace ! What a lot of scrawny old 
women, lean old hags, some of them without their faces 
covered — even the veiled ones you can see are only bags of 
bones. There is a derweesh, a naked holy man, seated in the 
dirt by the wall, reading the Koran. He has no book, but he 
recites the sacred text in a loud voice, swaying his body 
backwards and forwards. Now and then we see a shrill- 
voiced, handsome boy also reading the Koran with all his 
might, and keeping a laughing eye upon the passing world. 
Here comes a novel turn-out. It is a long truck- wagon drawn 
by one bony-horse. Upon it are a dozen women, squatting 
about the edges, facing each other, veiled, in black, silent, 
jolting along like so many bags of meal. A black imp stands 
in front, driving. They carry baskets of food and flowers, and 
are going to the cemetery to spend the day. 

We pass the cemetery, for the Pillar is on a little hillock 
overlooking it. Nothing can be drearier than this burying- 
ground — unless it may be some other Moslem cemetery. It 
is an uneven plain of sand, without a spear of grass or a green 
thing. It is covered thickly with ugly stucco, oven-like tombs, 
the whole inconceivably shabby and dust covered ; the tombs 
of the men have head-stones to distinguish them from the 
women. Yet, shabby as all the details of this crumbling 
cheap place of sepulture are, nothing could be gayer or more 
festive than the scene before us. Although the women are in 
the majority, there are enough men and children present, in 
colored turbans, fezes, and gowns, and shawls of Persian dye, 
to transform the graveyard into the semblance of a parterre 
of flowers. About hundreds of the tombs are seated in a cir- 
cle groups of women, with their food before them, and the 
flowers laid upon the tomb, waaling and howling in the very 



36 POMPE Y'S PILLAR. 

excess of dry-eyed grief. Here and there a group has em- 
ployed a "welee" or holy man, or a boy, to read the Koran 
f@r it — and these Koran-readers turn an honest para by their 
vocation. The women spend nearly the entire day in this 
sympathetic visit to their departed friends — it is a custom as 
old as history, and the Egyptians used to build their tombs 
with a visiting ante-chamber for the accommodation of the liv- 
ing. I should think that the knowledge that such a group of 
women were to eat their luncheon, wailing and roosting about 
one's tomb every week, would add a new terror to death. 

The Pillar, which was no doubt erected by Diocletian to his 
own honor, after the modest fashion of Romans as well as 
Egyptians, is in its present surroundings not an object of en- 
thusiasm, though it is almost a hundred feet high, and the 
monolith shaft was, before age affected it, a fine piece of pol- 
ished Syenite. It was no doubt a few thousand years older 
than Diocletian, and a remnant of that oldest civilization ; the 
base and capital he gave it are not worthy of it. Its principal 
use now is as a surface for the paint-brushes and chisels of 
distinguished travelers, who have covered it with their prec- 
ious names. I cannot sufficiently admire the naivete and self- 
depreciation of those travelers who paint and cut their names 
on such monuments, knciaving as they must that the first 
sensible person who reads the same will say, " This is an ass." 

We drive, still outside the walls, towards the Mahmoodeeh 
canal, passing amid mounds of rubbish, and getting a view of 
the desert-like country beyond. And now heaves in sight 
the unchanged quintessence of Orientalism — there is our first 
camel, a camel in use, in his native setting and not in a me- 
nagerie. There is a line of them, loaded with building-stones, 
wearily shambling along. The long bended neck apes hu- 
mility, bnat the supercilious nose in the air expresses perfect 
contempt for all modern life. The contrast of this haughty 
" stuck-up-ativeness" (it is necessary to coin this word to ex- 
press the camel's ancient conceit) with the royal ugliness of 
the brute, is both awe-inspiring and amusing. No human 
royal family dare be uglier than the camel. He is a mass of 



OUR FIRST CAMEL. 37 



bones, faded tufts, humps, lumps, splay-joints and callosities. 
His tail is a ridiculous wisp, and a failure as an ornament or a 
, fly-brush. His feet are simply big sponges. For skin cover- 
;ing he has patches of old buffalo robes, faded and with the 
hair worn off. His voice is more disagreeable than his ap- 
pearance. With a reputation for patience, he is snappish and 
vindictive. His endurance is over-rated — that is to say he 
dies like a sheep on an expedition of any length, if he is not 
well fed. His gait moves every muscle like an ague. And 
yet this ungainly creature carries his head in the air, and 
regards the world out of his great brown eyes with disdain. 
The Sphinx is not more placid. He reminds me, I don't 
know why, of a pyramid. He has a resemblance to a palm- 
tree. It is impossible to make an Egyptian picture without 
him. What a Hapsburg lip he has ! Ancient, royal ? The 
very poise of his head says plainly, " I have come out of the 
dim past, before history was ; the deluge did not touch me ; 
I saw Menes come and go ; I helped Shoofoo build the great 
pyramid ; I knew Egypt when it hadn't an obelisk nor a 
temple ; I watched the slow building of the pyramid at 
jSakkara. Did I not transport the fathers of your race across 
khe desert? There are three of us; the date-palm, the pyra- 
knid, and myself. Everything else is modern. Go to !" 

Along the canal, where lie dahabeehs that will by and by make 
their way up the Nile, are some handsome villas, palaces and 
gardens. This is the favorite drive and promenade. In the 
gardens, that are open to the public, we find a profusion of 
tropical trees and flowering shrubs ; roses are decaying, but the 
blossoms of the yellow acacia scent the air; there are Egyptian 
lilies; the plant with crimson leaves, not native here, grows as 
high as the arbutilon tree ; the red passion-flower is in bloom, 
and morning-glories cover with their running vine the tall and 
slender cypresses. The finest tree is the sycamore, with great 
gnarled trunk, and down-dropping branches. Its fruit, the 
sycamore fig, grows directly on the branch, without stem. It i's 
an insipid fruit, sawdust-y, but the Arabs like it, and have a 
saying that he who eats one is sure to return to Egypt. After 



38 DEPARTED GLORY. 



we had tried to eat one, we thought we should not care to return. 
The interior was filled with lively little flies; and a priest who 
was attending a school of boys taking a holiday in the grove, 
assured us that each fig had to be pierced when it was green, 
to let the flies out, in order to make it eatable. But the 
Egyptians eat them, flies and all. 

The splendors of Alexandria must be sought in books. The 
traveler will see scarcely any remains of a magnificence which 
dazzled the world in the beginning of our era. He may like to 
see the mosque that marks the site of the church of St. Mark, 
and he may care to look into the Coptic convent whence the Vene- 
tians stole the body of the saint, about a thousand years ago. Of 
course we go to see that wonder of our childhood, Cleopatra's 
Needles, as the granite obelisks are called that were brought 
from Alexandria and set up before a temple of Caesar in the time 
of Tiberius. Only one is standing, the other, mutilated, lies 
prone beneath the soil. The erect one stands near the shore 
and in the midst of hovels and incredible filth. The name of 
the earliest king it bears is that of Thothmes III., the great man 
of Egypt, whose era of conquest was about 1500 years before St. 
Mark came on his mission to Alexandria. 

The city which has had as many vicissitudes as most cities, 
boasting under the Caesars a population of half a million, that 
had decreased to 6,000 in iSoo, and has now again grown to 
over two hundred thousand, seems to be at a waiting point; the 
merchants complain that the Suez Canal has killed its trade. 
Yet its preeminence for noise, dirt and shabbiness will hardly 
be disputed ; and its bazaars and streets are much more inter- 
esting, perhaps because it is the meeting-place of all races, than 
travelers usually admit. 

We had scarcely set foot in our hotel when we were saluted 
and waited for by dragomans of all sorts. They knocked at our 
doors, they waylaid us in the passages ; whenever we emerged 
from our rooms half a dozen rose up, bowing low ; it was like 
being a small king, with obsequious attendants waiting every 
motion. They presented their cards, they begged we would 
step aside privately for a moment and look at the bundle of 



EGYPTIAN DRAGOMANS. 39 

recommendations they produced ; they would not press them- 
selves, but if we desired a dragoman for the Nile they were at 
our service. They were of all shades of color, except white, and 
of all degrees of oriental splendor in their costume. There were 
Egyptians, Nubians, Maltese, Greeks, Syrians. They speak well 
all the languages of the Levant and of Europe, except the one in 
which you attempt to converse with them. I never made the 
acquaintance of so many fine fellows in the same space of time. 
All of them had the strongest letters of commendation from 
travelers whom they had served, well-known men of letters and 
of affairs. Travelers give these endorsements as freely as they 
sign applications for government appointments at home. 

The name of the handsome dragoman who walked with us 
through the bazaars was, naturally enough, Ahmed Abdallah. 
He wore the red fez (tarboosh) with a gay kufifia bound about 
it ; an embroidered shirt without collar or cravat ; a long shawl 
of checked and bright-colored Beyrout silk girding the loins, in 
which was carried his watch and heavy chain ; a cloth coat ; and 
baggy silk trousers that would be a gown if they were not split 
enough to gather about each ankle. The costume is rather 
Syrian than Egyptian, and very elegant when the materials are 
fine ; but with a suggestion of effeminacy, to Western eyes. 

The native bazaars, which are better at Cairo, reveal to the 
traveler, at a glance, the character of the Orient; its cheap tinsel, 
its squalor, and its occasional richness and gorgeouisness. The 
shops on each side of the narrow street are little more than good- 
sized wardrobes, with room for shelves of goods in the rear and 
for the merchant to sit cross-legged in front. There is usually 
space for a customer to sit with him, and indeed two or three 
can rest on the edge of the platform. Upon cords stretched 
across the front hang specimens of the wares for sale. Wooden 
shutters close the front at night. These little cubbies are not 
only the places of sale but of manufacture of goods. Everything 
goes on in the view of all the world. The tailor is stitching, the 
goldsmith is blowing the bellows of his tiny forge, the saddler is 
repairing the old donkey-saddles, the shoemaker is cutting red 
leather, the brazier is hammering, the weaver sits at his little 



40 ^OL Y MOSLEMS. 



loom with the treadle in the ground — every trade goes on, 
adding its own clalsster to the uproar. 

What impresses us most is the good nature of the throng, 
under trying circumstances. The street is so narrow that three 
or four people abreast make a jam, and it is packed with those 
moving in two opposing currents. Through this mass comes a 
donkey with a couple of panniers of soil or of bricks, or bundles 
of scraggly sticks; or a camel surges in, loaded with building- 
joists or with lime ; or a Turkish officer, with a gaily caparisoned 
horse impatiently stamping; a porter slams along with a heavy 
box on his back; the water-carrier with his nasty skin rubs 
through ; the vender of sweetmeats finds room for his- broad 
tray; the orange-man pushes his cart into the throng; the Jew 
auctioneer cries his antique brasses and more antique raiment. 
Everybody is jostled and pushed and jammed; but everybody is 
in an imperturbable good humor, for no one is really in a hurry, 
and whatever is, is as it always has been and will be. And what 
a cosmopolitan place it is. We meet Turks, Greeks, Copts, 
Egyptians, Nubians, Syrians, Armenians, Italians; tattered der- 
weeshes, "welees" or holy Moslems, nearly naked, presenting 
the appearance of men who have been buried a long time and 
recently dug up; Greek priests, Jews, Persian Parsees, Alger- 
ines, Hindoos, negroes from Darfoor, and flat-nosed blacks from 
beyond Khartoom. 

The traveler has come into a country of holiday which is 
i: perpetual. Under this sun and in this air there is nothing to do 
but to enjoy life and attend to religion five times a day. We 
look into a mosque ; in the cool court is a fountain for washing ; 
the mosque is sweet and quiet, and upon its clean matting a row 
of Arabs are prostrating themselves in prayer towards the niche 
that indicates the direction of Mecca. We stroll along the open 
streets encountering a novelty at every step. Here is a musi- 
cian, a Nubian playing upon a sort of tambour on a frame ; a 
picking, feeble noise he produces, but he is accompanied by the 
oddest character we have seen yet. This is a stalwart, wild- 
eyed son of the sand, coal-black, with a great mass of uncombed, 
disordered hair hanging about his shoulders. His only clothing 



PRIMITIVE LIFE IN EGYPT. 41 

is a breech-cloth and a round shaving-glass bound upon his 
forehead; but he has hung about his waist heavy strings of goats' 
hoofs, and those he shakes, in time to the tambour, by a tremu- 
lous motion of his big hips as he minces about. He seems so 
i vastly pleased with himself that I covet knowledge of his lan- 
guage, in order to tell him that he looks like an idiot. 

Near the Fort Napoleon, a hill by the harbor, we encounter 
another scene peculiar to the East. A yellow-skinned, cunning- 
eyed conjurer has attracted a ring of idlers about him, who squat 
in the blowing dust, under the blazing sun, and patiently watch 
his antics. The conjurer himself performs no wonders, but the 
spectators are a study of color and feature. The costumes are 
brilliant red, yellow, and white. The complexions exhaust the 
possibilities of human color. I thought I had seen black people 
in South Carolina; but I saw a boy just now standing in a 
doorway who would have been invisible but for his white shirt; 
and here is a fat negress in a bright yellow gown and kerchief, 
whose jet face has taken an incredible polish; only the most 
accomplished boot-black could raise such a shine on a shoe ; 
tranquil enjoyment oozes out of her. The conjurer is assisted 
by two mites of children, a girl and a boy (no clothing wasted 
on them), and between the three a great deal of jabber and 
whacking with cane sticks is going on, but nothing is performed 
except the taking of a long snake from a bag and tying it 
round the little girl's neck. Paras are collected, however, and 
that is the main object of all performances. 

A little further on, another group is gathered around a story- 
teller, who is reeling off one of the endless tales in which the 
Arab delights ; love-adventures, not always the most delicate but 
none the less enjoyed for that, or the story of some poor lad 
who has had a wonderful career and finally married the Sultan's 
daughter. He is accompanied in his narrative by two men 
thumping upon darabooka drums, in a monotonous, sleepy 
fashion, quite in accordance however with the everlasting leisure 
that pervades the air. Walking about are the venders of sweets, 
and of greasy cakes, who carry tripods on which to rest their 
brass trays, and who split the air with their cries. 



42 THE LAND OF COLOR AND THE SUN. 

It is color, color, that makes all this shifting panorama so 
fascinating, and hides the nakedness, the squalor, the wretch- 
edness of all this unconcealed poverty ; color in flowing gar- 
ments, color in the shops, color in the sky. We have come to 
the land of the sun. 

At night when we walk around the square we stumble over 
bundles of rags containing men who are asleep, in all the cor- 
ners, stretched on doorsteps, laid away on the edge of the 
sidewalk. Opposite the hotel is a casino, which is more Frank 
than Egyptian. The musicians are all women and Germans 
or Bohemians ; the waiter-girls are mostly Italian ; one of 
them says she comes from Bohemia, and has been in India, to 
which she proposes to return. The habitues are mostly young 
Egyptians in Frank dress except the tarboosh, and Italians, all 
effeminate fellows. All the world of loose living and wander- 
ing meets here. Italian is much spoken. There is little that 
is Oriental here, except it may be a complaisance toward 
anything enervating and languidly wicked that Europe has to 
offer. This cheap concert is, we are told, all the amusement 
at night that can be offered the traveler, by the once pleasure- 
loving city of Cleopatra, in the once brilliant Greek capital 
in which Hypatia was a star. 



CHAPTER III. 



/ 



EGYPT OF TO-DAY. 

EGYPT has excellent railways. There is no reason why- 
it should not have. They are made without difficulty 
and easily maintained in a land of no frosts ; only where 
they touch the desert an occasional fence is necessary against 
the drifting sand. The rails are laid, without wooden sleepers, 
on iron saucers, with connecting bands, and the track is firm 
and sufficiently elastic. The express train travels the 131 
miles to Cairo in about four and a half hours, running with 
a punctuality, and with Egyptian drivers and conductors too, 
that is unique in Egypt. The opening scene at the station did 
not promise expedition or system. 

We reach the station three quarters of an hour before the 
departure of the train, for it requires a long time — in Egypt, 
as everywhere in Europe — to buy tickets and get baggage 
weighed. The officials are slower workers than our treasury- 
clerks. There is a great crowd of foreigners, and the baggage- 
room is piled with trunks of Americans, ' boxes ' of English- 
men, and chests and bundles of all sorts. Behind a high 
counter in a smaller room stand the scales, the weigher, and 
the clerks. Piles of trunks are brought in and dumped by the 
porters, and thrust forward by the servants and dragomans 
upon the counter, to gain them, preference at the scales. No 
sooner does a dragoman get in his trunk than another is thrust 
ahead of it, and others are hurled on top, till the whole pile 
comes down with a crash. There is no system, there are 
neither officials nor police, and the excited travelers are free^ 

43 



44: ORIENTAL REPOSE. 

to fight it out among themselves. To venture into the i7ielee is 
to risk broken bones, and it is wiser to leave the battle to luck 
and the dragomans. The noise is something astonishing. A 
score or two of men are yelling at the top of their voices, 
screaming, scolding, damning each other in polyglot, ges- 
ticulating, jumping up and down, quivering with excite- 
ment. This is your Oriental repose! If there were any rule 
by which passengers could take their turns, all the trunks 
-could be quickly weighed and passed on ; but now in the 
scrimmage not a trunk gets to the scales, and a half hour goes 
by in which no progress is made and the uproar mounts 
higher. 

Finally, Ahmed, slight and agile, handing me his cane, 
kuffia and watch, leaps over the heap of trunks on the coun- 
ter and comes to close quarters with the difficulty. He suc- 
ceeds in getting two trunks upon the platform of the scales, 
but a traveler, whose clothes were made in London, tips them 
off and substitutes his own. The weighers stand patiently 
waiting the result of the struggle. Ahmed hurls off the stran- 
ger's trunk, gives its owner a turn that sends him spinning 
over the baggage, and at last succeeds in getting our luggage 
weighed. He emerges from the scrimmage an exhausted man, 
and we get our seats in the carriage just in time. However, 
it does not start for half an hour. 

The reader would like to ride from Alexandria to Cairo, 
but he won't care to read much about the route. It is our first 
experience of a country living solely by irrigation — the occa- 
sional winter showers being practically of no importance. 
We pass along and over the vast shallows of Lake Mare- 
otis, a lake in winter and a marsh in summer, ride between 
marshes and cotton-fields, and soon strike firmer ground. We 
are traveling, in short, through a Jersey flat, a land black, fat, 
and rich, without an elevation, broken only by canals and di- 
vided into fields by ditches. Every rod is cultivated, and there 
are no detached habitations. The prospect cannot be called 
lively, but it is not without interest; there are ugly buffaloes 
in the coarse grass, there is the elegant white heron, which 



ARTIFICIAL IRRIGATION. 45. 

travelers insist is the sacred ibis, there are some doleful-look- 
ing feUaheen, with donkeys, on the bank of the canal, there is 
a file of camels, and there are shadoofs. The shadoof is the 
primitive method of irrigation, and thousands of years have 
not changed it. Two posts are driven into the bank of the 
canal, with a cross-piece on top. On this swings a pole with 
a bucket of leather suspended at one end, which is outweighed 
by a ball of clay at the other. The fellah stands on the slope 
of the bank and, dipping the bucket into the water, raises it 
and pours the fluid into a sluice-way above. If the bank is 
high, two and sometimes three shadoofs are needed to raise 
the water to the required level. The labor is prodigiously hard 
and back-straining, continued as it must be constantly. All 
the fellaheen we saw were clad in black, though some had a 
cloth about their loins. The workman usually stands in a 
sort of a recess in the bank, and his color harmonizes with the 
dark soil. Any occupation more wearisome and less benefi- 
cial to the mind I cannot conceive. To the credit of the 
Egyptians, the men alone work the shadoof. Women here 
tug water, grind the corn, and carry about babies, always ; but 
I never saw one pulling at a shadoof pole. 

There is an Arab village ! We need to be twice assured 
that it is a village. Raised on a slight elevation, so as to es- 
cape high water, it is still hardly distinguishable from the 
land, certainly not in color. All Arab villages look like ruins ; 
this is a compacted collection of shapeless mud-huts, flat-topped 
and irregularly thrown together. It is an aggregation of dog- 
kennels, baked in the sun and cracked. However, a clump of 
palm-trees near it gives it an air of repose, and if it possesses a 
mosque and a minaret it has a picturesque appearance, if the 
observer does not go too near. And such are the habitations 
of nearly all the Egyptians, 

Sixty-five miles from Alexandria, we cross the Rosetta 
branch of the Nile, on a fine iron bridge — even this portion of 
the Nile is a broad, sprawling river ; and we pass through 
several respectable towns which have an appearance of 
thrift — Tanta especially, with its handsome station and a pal- 



46 THE P YRAMIDS OF GEEZEH. 

ace of the Khedive. At Tanta is held three times a year a 
great religious festival and fair, not unlike the old fair 
of the ancient Egyptians at Bubastis in honor of Diana 
with quite as many excesses, and like that, with a gramme of 
religion to a pound of pleasure. " Now," says Herodotus, "when 
they are being conveyed to the city Bubastis, they act as fol- 
lows : — for men and women embark together, and great numbers 
of both sexes in every barge : some of the women have castanets 
on which they play, and the men play on the flute during the 
whole voyage ; and the rest of the women and men sing and clap 
their hands together at the same time." And he goes on to say 
that when they came to any town they moored the barge, and 
the women chaffed those on shore, and danced with indecent 
gestures ; and that at the festival more wine was consumed than 
all the rest of the year. The festival at Tanta is in honor of a 
famous Moslem saint whose tomb is there ; but the tomb is 
scarcely so attractive as the field of the fete, with the story-tel- 
lers and the jugglers and booths of dancing girls. 

We pass decayed Benha with its groves of Yoosef-Effendi oran- 
ges — the small fruit called Mandarin by foreigners, and preferred 
by those who like a slight medicinal smell and taste in the 
orange ; and when we are yet twenty miles from Cairo, there in 
the south-west, visible for a . moment and then hidden by the 
trees, and again in sight, faintly and yet clearly outlined against 
the blue sky, are two forms, the sight of which gives us a thrill. 
They stand still in that purple distance in which we have seen 
them all our lives. Beyond these level fields and these trees of 
sycamore and date-palm, beyond the Nile, on the desert's edge, 
with the low Libyan hills falling off behind them, as delicate in 
form and color as clouds, as enduring as the sky they pierce, the 
Pyramids of Geezeh ! I try to shake off the impression of their 
solemn antiquity, and imagine how they would strike one if all 
their mystery were removed. But that is impossible. The 
imagination always prompts the eye. And yet I believe that 
standing where they do stand, and in this atmosphere, they are 
the most impressive of human structures. But the pyramids 
would be effective, as the obelisk is not, out of Egypt. 



OLD FACTS, NEW IDEAS. 



47 



Trees increase in number ; we have villas and gardens ; the 
grey ledges of the Mokattam hills come into view, then the twin 
slender spires of the Mc^que of Mohammed Ali on the citadel 
promontory, and we are in the modern station of Cairo ; and be- 
fore we take in the situation are ignominiously driven away in 
a hotel-omnibus. This might happen in Europe. Yes ; but 
then, who are these in white and blue and red, these squatters by 
the wayside, these smokers in the suii, these turbaned riders on 
braying donkeys and grumbling dromedaries ; what is all this 
fantastic masquerade in open day .'' Do people live in these 
houses } Do women peep from these lattices 1 Isn't that 
gowned Arab conscious that he is kneeling and praying out- 
doors .'* Have we come to a land where all our standards fail, 
and people are not ashamed of their religion ? 



CHAPTER IV. 



CAIRO. 



CAIRO ! Cairo ! Masr-el-Kaherah, The Victorious ! 

City of the Caliphs, of Salah-e'-deen, of the Memlooks ! 

Town of mediaeval romance projected into a prosaic age! 
More Oriental than Damascus, or Samarcand. Vast, sprawling 
city, with dilapidated Saracenic architecture, pretentious modern 
barrack-palaces, new villas and gardens, acres of compacted, 
squalid, unsunned dwellings. Always picturesque, lamentably 
dirty, and thoroughly captivating. 

Shall we rhapsodize over it, or attempt to describe it? Fortu- 
nately, writers have sufficiently done both. Let us enjoy it. 
We are at Shepherd's. It is a caravansary through which the 
world flows. At its table d'hSte are all nations ; German princes, 
English dukes and sh'opkeepers, Indian officers, American 
sovereigns; explorers, savants, travelers; they have come for the 
climate of Cairo, they are going up the Nile, they are going to 
hunt in Abyssinia, to join an advance military party on the 
White Nile ; they have come from India, from Japan, from Aus- 
tralia, from Europe, from America. 

We are in the Frank quarter called the Ezbekeeh, which was 
many years ago a pond during high water, then a garden with a 
canal round it, and is now built over with European houses and 
shops, except the square reserved for the public garden. From 
the old terrace in front of the hotel, where the traveler used to 
look on trees, he will see now only raw new houses and a street 
usually crowded with passers and rows of sleepy donkeys and 
their voluMe drivers. The hotel is two stories only, built round 

48 



HO TEL LIFE— EG YP TIAN PLAN. 49 

a court, damp in rainy or cloudy weather (and it is learning 
how to rain as high up the Nile as Cairo), and lacking the 
comforts which invalids require in the winter. It is kept on an 
ingenious combination of the American and European plans ; 
that is, the traveler pays a fixed sum per day and then gets a bill 
of particulars, besides, which gives him all the pleasures of the 
European system. We heard that one would be more Orientally 
surrounded and better cared for at the Hotel du Nil; and the 
Khedive, who tries his hand at everything, has set up a New 
Hotel on the public square; but, somehow, one enters Shep- 
herd's as easy as he goes into a city gate. 

They call the house entirely European. But there are peli- 
cans walking about in the tropical garden ; on one side is the 
wall of a harem, a house belonging to the Khedive's mother, a 
harem with closed shutters, but uninteresting, because there is 
no one in it, though ostriches are strutting in its paved court; 
in the rear of the house stretches a great grove of tall date- 
palms standing in a dusty, debris-iixoMfw field — a lazy wind is 
always singing through their tops, and a sakiya (a cow-impelled 
water-wheel) creaks there day and night ; we never lock the 
doors of our rooms ; long-gowned attendants are always watching 
in the passages, and, when we want one, in default of bells, 
we open the door and clap the hands. All this, with a juggler 
performing before the house ; dragomans and servants and 
merchants in Oriental costume ; the monotonous strumming of 
an Arab band in a neighboring cdfei bricklayers on the unfin- 
ished house opposite us, working in white night-gowns and 
turbans, who might be mistaken at a distance for female sleep- 
walkers ; and from a minaret not far away, the tenor-voiced 
muezzins urging us in the most musical invitation ever- 
extended to unbelievers, to come to prayer at daylight — this 
cannot be called European. 

An end of the dinner-table, however, is occupied by a loud 

party of young Englishmen, a sprinkling of dukes and earls and 

those attendants and attentive listeners of the nobility who 

laugh inordinately when my lord says a good thing, and are 

encouraged when my lord laughs loudly- at a sally of theirs and 
4 



50 CAIRO. 

declares, " well, now, that's very good ; " a party who seem to 
regard Cairo as beyond the line of civilization and its require- 
ments. They talk loud, roar in laughing, stare at the ladies, and 
light their cigars before the latter have withdrawn. My comrade 
notices that they call for champagne before fish ; we could 
overlook anything but that. Some travelers who are annoyed 
at their boisterousness speak to the landlord about them, without 
knowing their rank — supposing that one could always tell an 
earl by his superior manners. These young representatives of 
England have demanded that the Khedive shall send them on 
their hunting-tour in Africa, and he is to do so at considerable 
cost; and it is said that he pays their hotel bills in Cairo. The 
desire of the Khedive to stand well with all the European powers 
makes him an easy prey to any nobleman who does not like to 
travel in Egypt at his own expense. (It ought to be added that 
we encountered on the Nile an Englishman of high rank who 
had declined the Khedive's offer of a free trip). 

Cairo is a city of vast distances, especially the new part which 
is laid out with broad streets, and built up with isolated houses 
having perhaps a garden or a green court; open squares are 
devoted to fountains and flower-beds. Into these broad avenues 
the sun pours, and through them the dust swirls in clouds; every- 
thing is covered with it; it imparts its grey tint to the town and 
sifts everywhere its impalpable powder. No doubt the health of 
Cairo is greatly improved and epidemics are lessened, by the 
destruction of the pestilent old houses and by running wide 
streets through the old quarters of twisting lanes and sunless 
alleys. But the wide streets are uninteresting, and the sojourner 
in the city likes to escape out of their glare and dust into the 
cool and shady recesses of the old town. And he has not far to 
go to do so. A few minutes walk from the Ezbekeeh brings 
one into a tangle like the crossing paths of an ants nest, into the 
very heart of the smell and color of the Orient, among people, 
among shops, in the presence of manners, habits, costumes, 
occupations centuries old, into a life in which the western man 
recognizes nothing familiar. 

Cairo, between the Mokattam hill of limestone and the Nile, 



LIFE UNDER THE SUN. 51 

covers a great deal of ground — about three square miles — on 
which dwell somewhere from a third to a half of a million of 
people. The traveler cannot see its stock-sights in a fortnight, 
and though he should be there months he will find something 
novel in the street-life daily, even though he does not, as Mr. 
Lane has so admirably done, make a study of the people. And" 
" life " goes on in the open streets, to an extent which always sur- 
prises us, however familiar we may be with Italian habits. People 
eat, smoke, pray, sleep, carry on all their trades in sight of the 
passers by — only into the recesses of the harem and the faces of 
the women one may not look. And this last mystery and reserve 
almost outweighs the openness of everything else. One feels as 
if he were in a masquerade ; the part of the world which is 
really most important — womankind — appears to him only in 
shadow and flitting phantasm. What danger is he in from these 
wrapped and veiled figures which glide by, shooting him with a 
dark and perhaps wicked eye ; what peril is he in as he slips 
through these narrow streets with their masked batteries of 
latticed windows ! This Eastern life is all open to the sun ; and 
yet how little of its secrets does the stranger fathom. I seem to 
feel, always, in an Eastern town, that there is a mask of duplicity 
and concealment behind which the Orientals live ; that they 
habitually deceive the traveler in his '%gropings after truth." 

The best way of getting about Cairo and its environs is on the 
donkey. It is cheap and exhilarating. The donkey is easily 
mounted and easily got off from ; not seldom he will weaken in 
his hind legs and let his rider to the ground — a sinking operation 
which destroys your confidence in life itself. Sometimes he 
stumbles and sends the rider over his head. But the good 
donkey never does either. He is the best animal, of his size 
and appearance, living. He has the two qualities of our greatest 
generals, patience and obstinacy. The good donkey is easy as 
a rocking-chair, sure-footed as a chamois ; he can thread any 
crowd and stand patiently dozing in any noisy thoroughfare for 
hours. To ride him is only a slight compromise of one's inde- 
pendence in walking. One is so near the ground, and so absent- 
mindedly can he gaze at what is around him, that he forgets that 



52 THE INDISPENSABLE DONKEY. 



there is anything under him. When the donkey, in the excite- 
ment of company on the open street and stimulated by the 
whacks and cries of his driver, breaks into the rush of a gallop, 
there is so much flying of legs and such a general flutter that the 
rider fancies he is getting over the ground at an awful rate, 
running a breakneck race; but it does not appear so to an 
observer. The rider has the feeling of the swift locomotion of 
the Arab steed without its danger or its expense. Besides, a 
long-legged man, with a cork hat and a flying linen " duster,"" 
tearing madly along on an animal as big as a sheep, is an amus- 
ing spectacle. 

The donkey is abused, whacked, beaten till he is raw, saddled 
so that all the straps gall him, hard-ridden, left for hours to be 
assailed by the flies in the street, and ridiculed by all men. I 
wish we could know what sort of an animal centuries of good 
treatment would have made of him. Something no doubt quite 
beyond human deserts ; as it is, he is simply indispensable in 
Eastern Hfe. And not seldom he is a pet; he wears jingling 
bells and silver ornaments around his neck ; his hair is shaved 
in spots to give him a variegated appearance, and his mane and 
tail are dyed with henna ; he has on an embroidered cloth bridle 
and a handsome saddle, under which is a scarlet cloth worked 
with gold. The length and silkiness of his ears are signs of his 
gentle breeding. I could never understand why he is loaded 
with such an enormous saddle ; the pommel of it rising up in 
front of the rider as big as a half-bushel measure. Perhaps it is 
thought well to put this mass upon his back so that he will not 
notice or mind any additional weight. 

The donkey's saving quality, in this exacting world, is inertia. 
And, yet, he is not without ambition. He dislikes to be passed 
on the road by a fellow ; and if one attempts it, he is certain to 
sheer in ahead of him and shove him off the track. " Donkey 
jealous one anoder," say the drivers. 

Each donkey has his driver or attendant, without whose 
presence, behind or at the side, the animal ceases to go forward. 
These boys, and some of them are men in stature, are the quick- 
est-witted, most importunate, good-natured vagabonds in the 



CLEARING THE WAY. 53 

world. They make a study of human nature, and accurately 
measure every traveler the moment he appears. They are agile 
to do errands, some of them are better guides than the profes- 
sionals, they can be entrusted with any purchases you may make, 
they run, carrying their slippers in their hand, all day beside the 
donkey, and get only a pittance of pay. They are however a 
jolly, larkish set, always skylarking with each other, and are 
not unlike the newspaper boys of New York ; now and then one 
of them becomes a trader or a dragoman and makes his fortune. 

If you prefer a carriage, good vehicles have become plenty of 
late years, since there are broad streets for driving ; and some 
very handsome equipages are seen, especially towards evening 
on the Shoobra road, up and down which people, ride and drive 
to be seen and to see, as they do in Central or Hyde parks. It 
is en regie to have a sais running before the carriage, and it is the 
^* swell thing " to have two of them. The running sais before a 
rapidly driven carriage is the prettiest sight in Cairo. He is 
usually a slender handsome black fellow, probably a Nubian, 
brilliantly dressed, graceful in every motion, running with 
perfect ease and able to keep up his pace for hours without 
apparent fatigue. In the days of narrow streets his services 
were indispensable to clear the way; and even now he is useful 
in the frequented ways where every one walks in the middle of 
the street, and the chattering, chaffing throngs are as heedless of 
anything coming as they are of the day of judgment. In red 
tarboosh with long tassel, silk and gold embroidered vest and 
jacket, colored girdle with ends knotted and hanging at the side, 
short silk trousers and bare legs, and long staff, gold-tipped, in 
the hand, as graceful in running as Antinous, they are most 
elegant appendages to a fashionable turnout. If they could not 
be naturalized in Central Park, it might fill some of the require- 
ments of luxury to train a patriot from the Green Isle to run 
before the horses, in knee-breeches, flourishing a shillalah. 
Faith, I think he would clear the way. 

Especially do I like to see the sais coming down the wind 
before a carriage of the royal harem. The outriders are 
eunuchs, two in front and two behind ; they are blacks, dressed 



54 HUMAN ANOMALIES. 

in black clothes, European cut, except the tarboosh. They ride 
fine horses, English fashion, rising in the saddle; they have long 
limbs, lank bodies, cruel, weak faces, and yet cunning ; they are 
sleek, shiny, emasculated. Having no sex, you might say they 
have no souls. How can these anomalies have any virtue, since 
virtue implies the opportunity of its opposite.? These sem- 
blances of men seem proud enough of their position, however, 
and of the part they play to their masters, as if they did not 
know the repugnance they excite. The carriage they attend is 
covered, but the silken hangings of the glass windows are drawn 
aside, revealing the white-veiled occupants. They indeed have 
no constitutional objections to being seen ; the thin veil enhances 
their charms, and the observer who sees their painted faces and 
bright languishing eyes, no doubt gives them credit for as much 
beauty as they possess ; and as they flash by, I suppose that 
every one, is convinced that he has seen one of the mysterious 
Circassian or Georgian beauties. 

The minute the traveler shows himself on the hotel terrace, 
the donkey-boys clamor, and push forward their animals upon 
the sidewalk; it is no small difficulty to select one out of the 
tangle ; there is noise enough used to fit out an expedition to the 
desert, and it is not till the dragoman has laid vigorously about 
him with his stick that the way is clear. Your nationality is 
known at a glance, and a donkey is instantly named to suit you 
— the same one being called, indiff'erently, " Bismarck " if you 
are German, "Bonaparte" if you are French, and "Yankee 
Doodle " if you are American, or " Ginger Bob " at a venture. 

We are going to Boulak, the so-called port of Cairo, to select 
a daliabeeh for the Nile voyage. We are indeed only getting 
ready for this voyage, and seeing the city by the way. The 
donkey-boys speak English like natives — of Egypt. The one 
running beside me, a handsome boy in a long cotton shirt, is 
named, royally, Mahmoud Hassan. 

" Are you the brother of Hassan whom I had yesterday .? " 

"No. He, Hassan not my brother; he better, he friend. 
Breakfast, lunch, supper, all together, all same ; all same money. 
We friends." 



A REPRESENTATIVE ARAB. 55 

Abd-el-Atti, our dragoman, is riding ahead on his grey donkey, 
and I have no difficulty in following his broad back and short 
legs, even though his donkey should be lost to sight in the 
press. He rides as Egyptians do, without stirrups, and uses 
his heels as spurs. Since Mohamnaed Abd-el-Atti EfFendi 
first went up the Nile, it is many years ago now, with Mr. 
Wm. C. Prime, and got his name prominently into the Nile 
literature, he has grown older, stout, and rich ; he is entitled 
by his position to the distinction of " Effendi." He boasts a 
good family, as good as any ; most of his relatives are, and 
he himself has been, in government employ; but he left it 
because, as he says, he prefers one master to a thousand. 
When a boy he went with the embassy of Mohammed Ali to 
England, and since that time he has traveled extensively as 
courier in Europe and the Levant and as mail-courier to 
India. Mr. Prime described him as having somewhat the 
complexion and features of the North American Indian ; it is 
true, but he has a shrewd restless eye, and very mobile 
features, quick to image his good humor or the reverse, 
breaking into smiles, or clouding over upon his easily aroused 
suspicion. He is a good study of the Moslem and the real 
Oriental, a combination of the easy, procrastinating fatalism, 
and yet with a tindery temper and an activity of body and 
mind that we do not usually associate with the East. His 
prejudices are inveterate, and he is an unforgiving enemy and 
a fast, self-sacrificing friend. Not to be driven, he can always 
be won by kindness. Fond of money and not forgetting the 
last piastre due him, he is generous and lavish to a fault. A 
devout Moslem, he has seen too much of the world not to be 
liberalized. He knows the Koran and the legendary history 
of the Arabs, and speaks and writes Arabic above the average. 
An exceedingly shrewd observer and reader of character, 
and a mimic of other's peculiarities, he is a good raconteur, in 
his peculiar English, and capital company. It is, by tbe wayj 
worth mentioning what sharp observers all these Eastern people 
become, whose business it is to study and humor the whims 
and eccentricities of travelers. The western man who thinks 



56 SELECTING DRAGOAIANS. 



that the Eastern people are childlike or effete, will change his 
mind after a few months acquaintance with the shrewd 
Egyptians. Abd-el-Atti has a good deal of influence and 
even authority in his sphere, and although his executive 
ability is without system, he brings things to pass. Wherever 
he goes, however, there is a ripple and a noise. He would 
like to go to Nubia with us this winter, he says, " for shange 
of air." 

So much is necessary concerning the character who is to be 
our companion for many months. No dragoman is better known 
in the East ; he is the sheykh of the dragomans of Cairo, and 
by reason of his age and experience he is hailed on the river as 
the sultan of the Nile. He dresses like an Englishman, except 
his fez. 

The great worry of the voyager in Egypt, from the moment 
he lands, is about a dragoman ; his comfort and pleasure depend 
very much upon a right selection. The dragoman and the 
dahabeeh interest him more than the sphinx and the great 
pyramids. Taking strangers up the Nile seems to be the great 
business of Egypt, and all the intricacies and tricks of it are 
slowly learned. Ignorant of the language and of the character 
of the people, the stranger may well be in a maze of doubt 
and perplexity. His gorgeously attired dragoman, whose 
recommendations would fit him to hold combined the offices 
of President of the American Bible Society and caterer for 
Delmonico, often turns out to be ignorant of his simplest 
duties, to have an inhabited but uninhabitable boat, to 
furnish a meagre table, and to be a sly knave. The traveler 
will certainly have no peace from the importunity of the 
dragomans until he makes his choice. One hint can be 
given : it is always best in a Moslem country to take a 
Moslem dragoman. 

We are on our way to Boulak. The sky is full of white 
light. The air is full of dust ; the streets are full of noise 
color, vivid life and motion. Everything is flowing, free, 
joyous. Naturally people fall into picturesque groups, form- 
ing, separating, shifting like scenes on the stage. Neither 



AN EG YP TIAN MARKE T-PLA CE. 57 

the rich silks and brilliant dyes, nor the tattered rags, and 
browns and greys are out of place ; full dress and nakedness 
are equally en regie. Here is a grave, long-bearded merchant 
in full turban and silk gown, riding his caparisoned donkey 
to his shop, followed by his pipe-bearer ; here is a half-naked 
fellah seated on the rear of his sorry-eyed beast, with a basket 
of greens in front of him ; here are a group of women, 
hunched astride their donkeys, some in white silk and some 
in black, shapeless in their balloon mantles, peeping at the 
world over their veils ; here a handsome saTs runs ahead of a 
•carriage with a fat Turk lolling in it, and scatters the loiterers 
right and left ; there are porters and beggars fast asleep by 
the roadside, only their heads covered from the sun ; there are 
lines of idlers squatting in all- day leisure by the wall, smoking 
or merely waiting for tomorrow. 

As we get down to Old Boulak the Saturday market is 
encountered. All Egyptian markets occupy the street or 
some open place, and whatever is for sale here, is exposed 
to the dust and the sun ; fish, candy, dates, live sheep, doora, 
beans, all the doubtful and greasy compounds on brass trays 
which the people eat, nuts, raisins, sugar-cane, cheap jewelry. 
It is difficult to force a way through the noisy crowd. The 
donkey-boy cries perpetually, to clear the way, "7^," take 
care, " shimdlak ! " to the left, '■'■ yemenak ! " to the right, 
ya ! riglak ! look out for your left leg, look out for your right 
leg, make way boy, make way old woman; but we joggle 
the old woman, and just escape stepping on the children and 
babies strewn in the street, and tread on the edge of mats 
spread on the ground, upon which provisions are exposed (to 
the dust) for sale. In the narrow, shabby streets, with 
dilapidated old balconies meeting overhead, we encounter 
loaded camels, donkeys with double panniers, hawkers of 
vegetables; and dodge through, bewildered by color and 
stunned by noise. What is it that makes all picturesque .'' 
More dirt, shabbiness, and nakedness never were assembled. 
That fellow who has cut armholes in a sack for holding nuts, 
and slipped into it for his sole garment, would not make a 



58 DAHABEEHS OF THE NILE. 

good figure on Broadway, but he is in place here, and as fitly 
dressed as anybody. These rascals will wear a bit of old 
carpet as if it were a king's robe, and go about in a pair of 
drawers that are all rags and strings, and a coarse towel 
twisted about the head for turban, with a gay insouciance that 
is pleasing. In fact, I suppose that a good, well-fitting black 
or nice brown skin is about as good as a suit of clothes. 

But O ! the wrinkled, flabby-breasted old women, who make 
a pretence of drawing the shawl over one eye ; the naked, big- 
stomached children with spindle legs, who sit in the sand and 
never brush away the circle of flies around each gummy eye ! 
The tumble-down houses, kennels in which the family sleep, 
the poverty of thousands of years, borne as if it were the only 
lot of life ! In spite of all this, there is not, I venture to say, 
in the world beside, anything so full of color, so gay and 
bizarre as a street in Cairo. And we are in a squalid suburb. 
At the shore of the swift and now falling Nile, at Boulak, 
are moored, four or five deep, the passenger dahabeehs, 
more than a hundred of them, gay with new paint and new 
carpets, to catch the traveler. There are small and large, old 
and new (but all looking new) ; those that were used for 
freight during the summer and may be full of vermin, and 
those reserved exclusively for strangers. They can be hired 
at from sixty pounds to two hundred pounds a month ; the 
English owner of one handsomely furnished wanted seven 
hundred and fifty pounds for a three-months' voyage. The 
Nile trip adds luxury to itself every year, and is getting so 
costly that only Americans will be able to afford it. 

After hours of search we settle upon a boat that will suit 
us, a large boat that had only made a short trip, and so new 
that we are at liberty to christen it ; and the bargaining for it 
begins. That is, the bargaining revolves around that boat, 
but glances off" as we depart in a rage to this or that other, 
until we appear to me to be hiring half the craft on the river. 
We appear to come to terms; again and again Abd-el-Atti 
says, "Well, it is finish," but new difficulties arise. 

The owners were an odd pair : a tall Arab in soiled gown 



A PROTRACTED BARGAIN. 59 

and turban, named Ahmed Aboo Yoosef, a mild and wary- 
Moslem ; and Habib Bagdadli, a furtive little Jew in Frank 
dress, with a cast in one of his pathetic eyes and a beseeching 
look, who spoke bad French fluently. Aboo Yoosef was 
ready to come to terms, but Bagdadli stood out ; then Bagdadli 
acquiesced but Aboo made conditions, Ab-del-Atti alter- 
nately coaxed and stormed; he pulled the Arab's beard; and 
he put his arm round his neck and whispered in his ear. 

" Come, let us to go, dis Jews make me mad. I can't do 
anything with dis little Jews." 

Our dragoman's greatest abhorrence is a Jew. Where is 
this one from ? I ask. 

" He from Algiers." The Algerian Jews have a bad repu- 
tation. 

" No, no, monsieur, pas Algiers^ cries the little Jew, appealing 
to me with a pitiful look ; " I am from Bagdad." In proof of 
this there was his name — Habib Bagdadli. 

The bargaining goes on, with fine gesticulation, despairing 
attitudes, tones of anger and of grief, violent protestations 
and fallings into apathy and dejection. It is Arab against 
Arab and a Jew thrown in. 

" I will have this boat, but I not put you out of the way on 
it ; " says Abd-el-Atti, and goes at it again. 

My sympathies are divided. I can see that the Arab and 
the Jew will be ruined if they take what we offer. I know 
that we shall be ruined if we give what they ask. This 
pathetic-eyed little Jew makes me feel that I am oppressing 
his race ; and yet I am quite certain that he is trying to 
overreach us. How the bargain is finally struck I know not, 
but made it seems to be, and clinched by Aboo reluctantly 
pulling his purse from his bosom and handing Abd-el-Atti a 
napoleon. That binds the bargain ; instead of the hirer 
paying something, the lessor gives a pledge. 

Trouble, however, is not ended. Certain alterations and 
additions are to be made, and it is nearly two weeks before 
the evasive couple complete them. The next day they offer 
us twenty pounds to release them. The pair are always 



60 



EGYPTIAN WILES. 



hanging about for some mitigation or for some advance. The 
gentle Jew, who seems to me friendless, always excites the ire 
of our dragoman ; " Here comes dis little Jews," he exclaims 
as he encounters him in the street, and forces him to go and 
fulfil some neglected promise. 

The boat is of the largest size, and has never been above 
the Cataract ; the owners guarantee that it can go, and there 
is put in the contract a forfeit of a hundred pounds if it will 
not. We shall see afterwards how the owners sought to 
•circumvent us. The wiles of the Egyptians are slowly 
learned by the open-minded stranger. 



CHAPTER V. 



IN THE BAZAAR. 



OUR sight-seeing in Cairo is accomplished under the 
superintendence of another guide and dragoman, a 
cheerful, willing, good-natured and careful Moslem, 
with one eye. He looks exactly like the one-eyed calender 
of the story ; and his good eye has a humorous and inquiring 
twinkle in it. His name is Hassan, but he prefers to be called 
Hadji, the name he has taken since he made the pilgrimage to 
Mecca. 

A man who has made the pilgrimage is called "the hhagg," 
a woman " the hhaggeh."— often spelled and pronounced "hadj" 
and "hadjee." It seems to be a privilege of travelers to spell Ara- 
bic words as they please, and no two writers agree on a single 
word or name. The Arabs take a new name or discard an 
old one as they like, and half a dozen favorite names do duty 
for half the inhabitants. It is rare to meet one who hasn't 
somewhere about him the name of Mohammed, Ahmed, All,. 
Hassan, Hosayn, or Mahmoud. People take a new name as 
they would a garment that strikes the fancy. 

"You like go bazaar?" asks Hadji, after the party is 
mounted on donkeys in front of the hotel. 

"Yes, Hadji, go by the way of the Mooskee." 
- The Mooskee is the best known street in Cairo, and the only 
one in the old part of the town that the traveler can find 
unaided. It runs straight, or nearly so, a mile perhaps, into 
the most densely built quarters, and is broad enough for 
carriages. A considerable part of it is roofed lightly over 

61 



Q2 AN EASTERN BAZAAR. 



with cane or palm slats, through which the sun sifts a little 
light, and, being watered, it is usually cool and pleasant. It 
cannot be called a good or even road, but carriages and 
donkeys pass over it without noise, the wheels making only a 
smothered sound : you may pass through it many times and 
not discover that a canal runs underneath it. The lower part 
of it is occupied by European shops. There are no fine 
shops in it like those in the Ezbekeeh, and it is not interesting 
like the bazaars, but it is always crowded. Probably no 
street in the world offers such a variety of costumes and 
nationalities, and in no one can be heard more languages. It 
is the main artery, from which branch off the lesser veins and 
reticulations leading into the bazaars. 

If the Mooskee is crowded, the bazaars are a jam. Different 
trades and nationalities have separate quarters, articles that 
are wanted are far apart, and one will of necessity consume a 
day in making two or three purchases. It is an achievement 
to find and bargain for a piece of tape. 

In one quarter are red slippers, nothing but red slippers, 
hundreds of shops hung with them, shops in which they are 
made and sold; the yellow slippers are in another quarter, and 
by no chance does one merchant keep both kinds. There are 
the silk bazaars, the gold bazaars, the silver bazaars, the brass, 
the arms, the antiquity, the cotton, the spice, and the fruit 
bazaars. In one quarter the merchants and manufacturers are 
all Egyptians, in another Turks, in another Copts, or Algerines, 
or Persians, or Armenians, or Greeks, or Syrians, or Jews. 

And what is a bazaar.? Simply a lane, narrow, straight or 
crooked, winding, involved, interrupted by a fountain, or a 
mosque, intersected by other lanes, a congeries of lanes, roofed 
with matting it may be, on each side of which are the little 
shops, not much bigger than a dry-goods box or a Saratoga 
trunk. Frequently there is a story above, with hanging balco- 
nies and latticed windows. On the ledge of his shop the 
merchant, in fine robes of silk and linen, sits cross-legged, 
probably smoking his chibook. He sits all day sipping coffee 
and gossipping with his friends, waiting for a customer. At the 



"A GUEST OF GOD AND THE PROPHET." 63 

times of prayer he spreads his prayer-carpet and pursues his 
devotions in sight of all the world. 

This Oriental microcosm called a bazaar is the most char- 
acteristic thing in the East, and affords most entertainment ; in 
these cool recesses, which the sun only penetrates in glints, is 
all that is shabby and all that is splendid in this land of violent 
contrasts. The shops are rude, the passages are unpaved dirt, 
the matting above hangs in shreds, the unpainted balconies are 
about to tumble down, the lattice-work is grey with dust ; fleas 
abound ; you are jostled by an unsavory throng may be ; run 
against by loaded donkeys ; grazed by the dripping goat-skins 
of the water-carsiers ; beset by beggars; followed by Jews 
offering old brasses, old cashmeres, old armor ; squeezed against 
black backs from the Soudan ; and stunned by the sing-song 
cries 'of a dozen callings. But all this is nothing. Here are 
the perfumes of Arabia, the colors of Paradise. These narrow 
streets are streams of glancing color; these shops are more 
brilliant than any picture — but in all is a softened harmony, the 
ancient art of the East. 

We are sitting at a corner, pricing some pieces of old brass 
and arms. The merchant sends for tiny cups of coffee and 
offers cigarettes. He and the dragoman are wrangling about 
the price of something for which five times its value is asked. 
Not unlikely it will be sold for less than it is worth, for neither 
trader nor traveler has any idea of its value. Opposite is a 
shop where three men sit cross-legged, making cashmere shawls 
by piecing old bits of India scarfs. Next shop is occupied only 
by a boy who is reading the Koran in a loud voice, rocking 
forwards ajid backwards. A stooping seller of sherbet comes 
along clinking his glasses. A vender of sweetmeats sets his 
tray before us. A sorry beggar, a dwarf, beseeches in figurative 
language. 

"What does he want, Hadji .? " 

" He say him hungry, want piece bread ; O, no matter for he." 

The dragomans never interpret anything, except by short 
cuts. What the dwarf is really saying, according to Mr, Lane, is, 

" For the sake of God ! O ye charitable. I am seeking from 



64 WORKS MEET FOR PARADISE. 

my lord a cake of bread. I am the guest of God and the 
Prophet." 

As we cannot content him by replying in like strain, " God 
enrich thee," we earn his blessing by a copper or two. 

Across the street is an opening into a nest of shops, gaily 
hung with embroideries from Constantinople, silks from Broussa 
and Beyrout, stuffs of Damascus ; a Persian rug is spread on the 
mastabah of the shop, swords and inlaid pistols with flint locks 
shine amid the rich stuffs. Looking down this street, one way, 
is a long vista of bright color, the street passing under round 
arches through which I see an old wall painted in red and 
white squares, upon which the sun falls in a flood of white 
light. The street in which we are sitting turns abruptly at a 
little distance, and apparently ends in a high Moorish house, 
with queer little latticed windows, and balconies, and dusty 
recesses full of mystery in this half light ; and at the corner 
opposite that, I see part of a public fountain and hear very 
distinctly the " studying " of the school over it. 

The public fountain is one of the best institutions of Cairo as 
well as one of the most ornamental. On the street it is a 
rounded Saracenic structure,highly ornamented in carved marble 
or stucco, and gaily painted, having in front two or three faucets 
from which the water is drawn. Within is a tank which is 
replenished by water brought in skins from the Nile. Most of 
these fountains are charitable foundations, by pious Moslems 
who leave or set apart a certain sum to ensure the yearly supply 
of so many skins of water. Charity to the poor is one of the 
good traits of the Moslems, and the giving of alms and the 
building of fountains are the works that will be rewarded in 
Paradise. 

These fountains, some of which are very beautiful, are often 
erected near a mosque. Over them, in a room with a vaulted 
roof and open to the street by three or four arches with pillars, 
is usually a boys' school. In this room on the floor sit the 
master and his scholars. Each pupil has before him his lesson 
written on a wooden tablet, and this he is reading at the top of 
his voice, committing it to memory, and swaying incessantly 



A MOSLEM FUNERAL. 65 

backwards and forwards — a movement that is supposed to 
assist the memory. With twenty boys shouting together, the 
noise is heard above all the clamor of the street. If a boy looks 
off or stops his recitation, the stick of the schoolmaster sets him 
going again. 

The boys learn first the alphabet, then the ninety-nine 
epithets of God, and then the Koran, chapter by chapter. This 
is the sura of human knowledge absolutely necessary ; if the boy 
needs writing and arithmetic he learns them from the steelyard 
weigher in the market ; or if he is to enter any of the professions, 
he has a regular course of study in the Mosque El Ezher, which 
has thousands of students and is the great University of the 
East. 

Sitting in the bazaar for an hour one will see strange sights ; 
wedding and funeral processions are not the least interesting 
of them. We can never get accustomed to the ungainly camel, 
thrusting his huge bulk into these narrow limits, and stretching 
his snake neck from side to side, his dark driver sitting high up 
in the dusk of the roof on the wooden saddle, and swaying to 
and fro with the long stride of the beast. The camel ought to 
be used in funeral processioiis, but I believe he is not. 

We hear now a chanting down the dusky street. Somebody 
is being carried to his tomb in the desert outside the city. The 
procession has to squeeze through the crowd. First come a half 
dozen old men, ragged and half blind, harbingers of death, who 
move slowly, crying in a whining tone, " There is no deity but 
God; Mohammed is God's apostle ; God bless and save him," 
Then come two or three schoolboys singing in a more lively air 
verses of a funeral hymn. The bier is borne by friends of the 
deceased, who are relieved occasionally by casual passengers. 
On the bier, swathed in grave-clothes, lies the body, with a Cash- 
mere shawl thrown over it. It is followed by female hired women, 
who beat their breasts and howl with shrill and prolonged ulula- 
tions. The rear is brought up by the female mourners, relations — 
a group of a dozen in this case — whose hair is dishevelled and 
who are crying and shrieking with a perfect abandonment to the 
luxury of grief. Passengers in the street stop and say, " God 
5 



QQ THE GOLD-BAZAAR. 



is most great," and the women point to the bier and say, "I 
testify that there is no deity but God." 

When the funeral has passed and its incongruous mingling of 
chanting and shrieking dies away, we turn towards the gold 
bazaar. All the goldsmiths and silversmiths are Copts ; through- 
out Egypt the working of the precious metals is in their hands. 
Descended from the ancient Egyptians, or at least having more 
of the blood of the original race in them than others, they have 
:iinherited the traditional skill of the ancient workers in these 
metals. They reproduce the old jewelry, the barbarous orna- 
ments, and work by the same rude methods, producing 
sometimes the finest work with the most clumsy tools. 

The gold-bazaar is the narrowest passage we have seen. We 

step down into its twilight from a broader street. It is in fact 

about three feet wide, a lane with an uneven floor of earth, often 

slippery. On each side are the little shops, just large enough 

for the dealer and his iron safe, or for a tiny forge, bellows and 

anvil. Two people have to make way for each other in squeezing 

along this alley, and if a donkey comes through he monopolizes 

the way and the passengers have to climb upon the mastabahs 

' either side. The mastabah is a raised seat of stone or brick, 

' built against the front of the shop and level with its floor, say 

■ two feet and ahalfhigh and two feet broad. The lower shutter 

M3f the shop turns down upon the mastabah and forms a seat 

upon which a rug is spread. The shopkeeper may sit upon this, 

or withdraw into his shop to make room for customers, who 

remove their shoes before drawing up their feet upon the carpet. 

Sometimes three or four persons will crowd into this box called 

a shop. The bazaar is a noisy as well as a crowded place, for 

to the buzz of talk and the cries of the itinerant venders is 

added the clang of the goldsmiths' hammers ; it winds down into 

the recesses of decaying houses and emerges in another direction. 

We are to have manufactured a bracelet of gold of a pattern 
as old as the Pharaohs, and made with the same instruments 
that the cunning goldsmiths used three thousand years ago. 
While we are seated and bargaining for the work, the goldsmith 
unlocks his safe and shows us necklaces, bracelets, anklets, and 



SHOPPING FOR A NECKLACE. 6Y 

earrings in the very forms, bizarre but graceful, of the jewelry 
of which the Israelites spoiled the Egyptian women. We see 
just such in the Museum at Boulak ; though these are not so fine 
as the magnificent jewelry -which Queen Aah-hotep, the mother 
of Amosis, attempted to carry with her into the under-world, 
and which the scientific violaters of her tomb rescued at Thebes. 

In the shop opposite to us are squeezed in three Egyptian 
women and a baby, who have come to spend the day in cheap- 
ening some bit of jewelry. There is apparently nothing that 
the Cairo women like so much as shopping — at least those who 
are permitted to go out at all — and they eke out its delights by 
consuming a day or two in buying one article. These women 
are taking the trade leisurely, examining slowly and carefully the 
whole stock of the goldsmith and deliberating on each bead and 
drop of a necklace, glancing slily at us and the passers-by out 
of their dark eyes meantime. They have brought cakes of 
i)read for lunch, and the baby is publicly fed as often as he 
desires. These women have the power of sitting still in one 
spot for hours, squatting with perfect patience in a posture that 
would give a western woman the cramp for her lifetime. We 
are an hour in bargaining with the goldsmith, and are to 
return late in the afternoon and see the bracelet made before 
our eyes, for no one is expected to trust his fellow here. 

Thus far the gold has only been melted into an ingot, and 
that with many precautions against fraud. I first count out the 
napoleons of which the bracelet is to be made. These are 
weighed. A fire is then kindled in the little forge, the crucible 
heated, and I drop the napoleons into it, one by one. We all 
carefully watch the melting to be sure that no gold is spilled in 
the charcoal and no base metal added. The melted mass is 
then run into an ingot, and the ingot is weighed against the 
same number of napoleons that compose it. And I carry away 
the ingot. 

When we return the women are still squatting in the shop in 
the attitude of the morning. They show neither impatience nor 
weariness; nor does the shopkeeper. The baby is sprawled 
out in his brown loveliness, and the purchase of a barbarous 



(38 CONDUCTING A BRIDE HOME. 

necklace of beads is about concluded. Our goldsmith now 
removes his outer garment, revealing his fine gown of striped 
silk, pushes up his sleeves and prepares for work. His only- 
tools are a small anvil, a hammer and a pair of pincers. The 
ingot is heated and hammered, and heated and hammered, until 
it is drawn out into an even, thick wire. This is then folded in 
three to the required length, and twisted, till the gold looks like 
molasses candy; the ends are then hammered together, and the 
bracelet is bent to its form. Finally it is weighed again and 
cleaned. If the owner wishes he can have put on it the 
government stamp. Gold ornaments that are stamped, the 
goldsmith will take back at any time and give for them their 
weight in coin, less two per cent. 

On our way home we encounter a wedding procession; this 
is the procession conducting the bride to the house of the 
bridegroom, that to the bath having taken place two days before. 
The night of the day before going to the bridegroom is called 
the "Night of henna." The bride has an entertainment at her 
own house, receives presents of money, and has her hands and her 
feet dyed with henna. The going to the bridegroom is on the 
eve of either Monday or Friday. These processions we often 
meet in the streets of Cairo ; they wander about circuitously 
through the town making all the noise and display possible. 
The procession is a rambling affair and generally attended by a 
rabble of boys and men. 

This one is preceded by half a dozen shabbily dressed 
musicians beating different sorts of drums and blowing hautboys, 
each instrument on its own hook ; the tune, if there was one, 
has become discouraged, and the melody has dropped out; 
thump, pound, squeak, the music is more disorganized than the 
procession, and draggles on in noisy dissonance like a drunken 
militia band at the end of a day's "general training." 

Next come some veiled women in black; and following them 
are several small virgins in white. The bride walks next, with a 
woman each side of her to direct her steps. This is necessary, 
for she is covered from head to feet with a red cashmere shawl 
hanging from a sort of crown on the the top of her head. She is 



A PARTNERSHIP MATTER. 69 

in appearance, simply a red cone. Over her and on three sides 
of her, but open in front, is a canopy of pink silk, borne on poles 
by four men. Behind straggle more musicians, piping and 
thumping in an independent nonchalance, followed by Gleeful 
boys. One attendant sprinkles rose-water on the spectators, 
and two or three others seem to have a general direction 
of the course of the train, and ask backsheesh for it when- 
ever a stranger is met. 

The procession gets time occasionally and sits down in the 
dust of the road to rest. Sometimes it is accompanied by 
dancers and other performers to amuse the crowd. I saw one 
yesterday which had halted by the roadside, all the women 
except the bride squatting down in patient resignation. In a 
hollow square of spectators, in front, a male dancer was 
exhibiting his steps. Holding a wand perpendicularly before 
him with both hands, he moved backwards and forwards, with a 
mincing gait, exhibiting neither grace nor agility, but looking 
around with the most conceited expression I ever saw on a 
human face. Occasionally he would look down at his legs with 
the most approving glance, as much as to say, " I trust, God 
being great, that you are taking particular notice of those legs ; 
it seems to me that they couldn't be improved." The fellow 
enjoyed his dancing if no one else did, and it was impossible to 
get him to desist and let the procession move on. At last the 
cortege made a detour round the man who seemed to be so 
popular with himself, and left him to enjoy his own performance. 

Sometimes the expense of this zeffeh, or bridal procession, is 
shared by two parties, and I have seen two brides walking under 
the same canopy, but going to different husbands. The public 
is not excluded from an interest in these weddings. The house 
of a bridegroom, near the Mooskee, was illuminated a night or 
two before the wedding, colored lanterns were hung across the 
street, and story-tellers were engaged to recite in front of the 
house. On the night of the marriage there was a crowd which 
greatly enjoyed the indelicate songs and stories of the hired 
performers. Late in the evening an old woman appeared at a 
window and proclaimed that the husband was contented with 
his wife. 



YO EARL V MARRIA GES AND. DECA Y. 

An accompaniment of a bridal procession which we sometimes 
saw we could not understand. Before the procession proper^ 
walked another, preceded by a man carrying on his head a 
high wooden cabinet, with four legs, the front covered with 
pieces of looking-glass and bits of brass; behind him were 
musicians and attendants, followed by a boy on horseback, 
dressed richly in clothes too large for him and like a girl's. It 
turned out to be a parade before circumcision, the friends of 
the lad having taken advantage of the bridal ceremony of a 
neighbor to make a display. The wooden case was merely the 
sign of the barber who walked in the procession and was to 
perform the operation. 

"I suppose you are married .? " I ask Hadji when the pro- 
cession has gone by. 

"Yes, sir, long time." 

" And you have never had but one wife 1 " 

"Have one. He quite nuff for me." 

" How old was she when you married her.? " 

" Oh, I marry he, when he much girl ! I tink he eleven, 
maybe twelve, not more I tink." 

Girls in Egypt are marriageable at ten or eleven, and it is 
said that if not married before they are fourteen they have an 
excellent chance of being old maids. Precocious to mature, 
they are quick" to fall away and lose their beauty ; the laboring 
classes especially are ugly and flabby before eighteen. The low 
mental, not to say physical, condition of Egyptian women is no 
doubt largely due to these early marriages. The girl is married 
and is a mother before she has an opportunity to educate herself 
or to learn the duties of wife or mother, ignorant of how to- 
make a home pleasant and even of housekeeping, and when she 
is utterly unfit to have the care and training of a child. 
Ignorant and foolish, and, as Mr. Lane says, passionate, women 
and mothers can never produce a great race. And the only 
reform for Egypt that will give it new vitality and a place in the 
world must begin with the women. 

The Khedive, who either has foresight or listens to good 
advice, issued a firman some years ago forbidding the marriage 



LONGINGS FOR YOUTH. 



n 



of girls under fifteen. It does not seem to be respected either 
in city or country; though I believe that it has some influence in 
the city, and generally girls are not married so young in Cairo 
as in the country. Yet I heard recently in this city of a man of 
sixty who took a wife of twelve. As this was not his first wife, it 
could not be said of him, as it is said of some great geniuses, 
that he struck twelve the first time. 



CHAPTER VI. 



MOSQUES AND TOMBS. 



WHAT we in Cairo like most to do, is to do '^nothing in 
the charming winter weather — to postpone the regular 
and necessary sight-seeing to that limbo to which the 
Arabs relegate everything — bookra, that is, tomorrow. Why 
not as well go to the Pyramids or to Heliopolis or to the tombs 
of the Memlooks tomorrow! It is to be the same fair weather; 
we never plan an excursion, with the proviso, " If it does not 
rain." This calm certainty of a clear sky adds twenty-five per 
cent, to the value of life. 

And yet, there is the Sirocco ; that enervating, depressing 
south wind, when all the sands of the hot desert rise up into the 
air and envelope everything in grit and gloom. I have been on 
the Citadel terrace when the city was only dimly outlined in the 
thick air, and all the horizon and the sky were veiled in dust as 
if by a black Scotch mist. We once waited three days after we 
had set a time to visit the Pyramids, for the air to clear. The 
Sirocco is bad enough in the town, the fine dust penetrates the 
closed recesses of all apartments ; but outside the city it is 
unbearable. Indeed any wind raises the sand disagreeably; 
and dust is the great plague of Egypt. The streets of Cairo^ 
except those that are sprinkled, are seldom free from clouds 
of it. And it is an ancient dust. I suppose the powdered 
dead of thousands of years are blowing about in the air. 

The desert makes itself apparent even in Cairo. Not only 
is it in the air, but it lies in wait close to the walls and houses, 
ready to enter at the gates, sifting in through every crevice. 

72 



THE CITADEL OF CAIRO. 73 

Only by constant irrigation can it be driven back. As soon 
as we pass beyond the compact city eastward, we enter the 
desert, unless we follow the course of some refreshing canal. 
The drive upon it is a favorite one on summer nights. I have 
spoken of the desert as hot ; but it is always cool at night ; 
and it is the habit of foreigners who are detained in Cairo in 
the summer to go every night to the desert to cool off. 

The most conspicuous object in Cairo, from all points, is 
the Citadel, built on a bold spur of the Mokattam range, and 
the adjoining Mosque of Mohammed Ali in which that savage 
old reformer is buried. The mosque is rather Turkish than 
Saracenic, and its two slender minarets are much criticised. 
You who have been in Constantinople are familiar with the 
like slight and graceful forms in that city ; they certainly 
are not so rich or elegant as many of the elaborately carved 
and more robust minarets of Cairo which the genius of the old 
architects reared in the sun-burst of Saracenic architecture; 
but they are very picturesque and effective in their position 
and especially against a poetic evening sky. 

When Salah-e'-deen robbed the pyramids to build the Citadel, 
he doubtless thought he was erecting a fortification that would 
forever protect his city and be an enduring home for the 
Sultans of Egypt. But Mohammed Ali made it untenable as 
a fort by placing a commanding battery on the Mokattam 
ledge ; and now the Citadel (by which I mean all the group 
of buildings) useless as a fort (except to overawe the city) 
and abandoned as a palace, is little more than a ghost-walk of 
former splendors. There are barracks in it ; recruits are 
drilling in its squares; the minister-of-war occupies some of 
its stately apartments ; the American General Stone, the chief 
oflEicer of the Khedive's army, uses others ; in some we find the 
printing presses and the bureaus of the engineers and the 
typographical corps ; but vast halls and chambers of audience, 
and suites of apartments of the harem, richly carved and 
gilded, are now vacant and echo the footsteps of sentries 
and servitors. And they have the shabby look of most 
Eastern architecture when its first freshness is gone. 



74 MASSACRE OF THE MEM LOOKS. 

We sat in the room and on the platform where Mohammed 
Ali sat when the slaughter of the Memlooks was going on ; 
he sat motionless, so it is reported, and gave no other sign of 
nervousness than the twisting of a piece of paper in his hands. 
And yet he must have heard the cries under his window, and, 
of course, the shots of the soldiers on the walls who were 
executing his orders. We looked down from the balcony 
into the narrow, walled lane, with its closed gates, in which 
the five hundred Memlooks were hemmed in and massacred. 
Think of the nerve of the old Turk, sitting still without 
changing countenance while five hundred, or more, gallant 
swash-bucklers were being shot in cool blood under his 
window ! Probably he would not have been so impassive if 
he had seen one of the devoted band escape by spurring his 
horse through a break in the wall and take a fearful flying 
leap upon the rubbish below. 

The world agrees to condemn this treacherous and ferocious 
act of Mohammed Ali and, generally, I believe, to feel grateful 
to him for it. Never was there a clan of men that needed 
exterminating so much as the Memlooks. Nothing less would 
have suited their peculiarities. They were merely a band of 
robbers, black-mailers, and freebooters, a terror to Egypt. 
Dislodged from actual power, they were still greatly to be 
dreaded, and no ruler was safe who did not obey them. The 
term Memlook means " a white male slave," and is still so 
used. The Memlooks, who originally were mostly Circassian 
white slaves, climbed from the position of favorites to that of 
tyrants. They established a long dynasty of sultans, and 
their tombs yonder at the edge of the desert are among the 
most beautiful specimens of the Saracenic architecture. Their 
sovereignty was overthrown by Sultan Selim in 15 17, but they 
remained a powerful and aristocratic band which controlled 
governors, corrupted even Oriental society by the introduction 
of monstrous vices, and oppressed the people. I suppose 
that in the time of the French invasion they may have been 
joined by bold adventurers of many nations. Egypt could 
have no security so long as any of them remained. It was 



THE MOSQUE OF MOHAMMED ALT. 75 

doubtless in bad taste for Mohammed Ali to extend a friendly- 
invitation to the Memlooks to visit him, and then murder 
them when they were caught in his trap; he finally died 
insane, and perhaps the lunacy was providentially on him at 
that time. 

In the Citadel precincts is a hall occupied by the "parli- 
ament " of the Khedive, when it is in session ; a parliament 
whose members are selected by the Viceroy from all over 
Egypt, in order that he may have information of the state of 
the country, but a body that has no power and certainly not 
so much influence in the state as the harem has. But its 
very assemblage is an innovation in the Orient, and it may 
lead in time to infinite gab, to election briberies and multi- 
tudinous legislation, the accompaniments of the highest 
civilization. We may yet live to see a member of it rise to 
enquire into the expenses of the Khedive's numerous family. 

The great Mosque of Mohammed Ali is in the best repair 
and is the least frequented of any in Cairo, Its vast, domed 
interior, rich in materials and ambitious in design, is impressive^ 
but this, like all other great mosques, strikes the Western man 
as empty. On the floor are beautiful rugs; a tawdry chande- 
lier hangs in the center, and the great spaces are strung with 
lanterns. No one was performing ablution at the handsome 
fountain in the marble-paved court ; only a single worshipper 
was kneeling at prayer in all the edifice. But I heard a bird 
singing sweetly in the airy height of the dome. 

The view from the terrace of the mosque is the finest in 
Egypt, not perhaps in extent, but certainly in variety and 
objects of interest ; and if the atmosphere and the light are 
both favorable, it is the most poetic. From it you command 
not only the city and a long sweep of the Nile, with fields of 
living green and dark lines of palms, but the ruins and 
pyramids of slumberous old Memphis, and, amid the yellow 
sands an-d backed by the desolate Libyan hills, the dreamy 
pyramids of Geezeh. We are advised to get this view at 
sunset, because then the light is soft and all the vast landscape 
has color. This is good advice so far as the city at our feet is 



Y6 TOMBS OF THE MEM LOOK SULTANS. 

concerned, with its hundreds of minarets and its wide expanse 
of fiat roofs, palm-tops and open squares ; there is the best 
light then also on the purple Mokattam hills ; and the tombs 
of the Memlooks, north of the cemetery, with their fairy 
domes and exquisite minarets and the encompassing grey 
desert, the whole bathed in violet light, have a beauty that 
will linger with one who has once seen them forever. But 
looking beyond the Nile, you have the sun in your face. I 
should earnestly entreat the stranger to take this view at 
sunrise. I never saw it myself at that hour, being always 
otherwise engaged, but I am certain that the Pyramids and 
the Libyan desert would wake at early morning in a glow of 
transcendent beauty. 

We drive out the gate or Bab e' Nasr beyond the desolate 
Moslem cemetery, to go to the tombs of the Circassian Memlook 
Sultans. We pass round and amid hills of rubbish, dirt, and 
broken pottery, the dumpings of the city for centuries, and 
travel a road so sandy that the horses can scarcely drag the 
heavy carriage through it. The public horses of Cairo are sorry 
beasts and only need a slight excuse for stopping at any time. 
There is nothing agreeable about the great Moslem cemetery; 
it is a field of sand-heaps, thickly dotted with little oven-shaped 
stucco tombs. They may be pleasanter below ground ; for the 
vault into which the body is put, without a coffin, is high enough 
to permit its occupant to sit up, which he is obliged to do, 
whether he is able to sit up or not, the first night of his stay 
there, in order to answer the questions of two angels who come 
to examine him on his religious practices and views. 

The Tombs of the Sultans, which are in the desert, are in fact 
vast structures, — tombs and mosques united—and are built of 
parti-colored stone. They are remarkable for the beautiful and 
varied forms of their minarets and for their aerial domes ; the 
latter are covered with the most wonderful arabesque carving 
and tracing. They stand deserted, with the sand drifting about 
them, and falling to rapid decay. In the interiors are still 
traces of exqusite carving and color, but much of the ornament- 
ation, being of stucco on rude wooden frames, only adds to the 



"LIFE OUT OF death:' Y7 

appearance of decay. The decay of finery is never respectable. 
It is not correct, however, to speak of these mosque-tombs as 
deserted. Into all of them have crept families of the poor or of 
the vicious. And the business of the occupants, who call them- 
selves guardians, is to extract backsheesh from the visitor. 
Spinning, knitting, baking, and all the simple household occu- 
pations go on in the courts and in the gaunt rooms; one tomb 
is used as a grist-mill. The women and girls, dwelling there go 
unveiled ; they were tattooed slightly upon the chin and the 
forehead, as most Egyptian women are; some of the younger 
were pretty, with regular features and handsome dark eyes. 
Near the mosques are lanes of wretched homes, occupied by as 
wretched people. The whole mortal neighborhood swarms 
(life out of death) with children ; they are as thick as jars at a 
pottery factory ; they are as numerous as the flies that live on 
the rims of their eyes and noses ; they are as naked, most of them, 
as when they were born. The distended condition of their 
stomachs testify that they have plenty to eat, and they tumble 
about in the dirt, in the full enjoyment of this delicious climate. 
People can afford to be poor when nature is their friend. 



CHAPTER VII. 



MOSLEM WORSHIP. — THE CALL TO PRAYER. 



I SHOULD like to go once to an interesting city where there 
are no sights. That city could be enjoyed ; and conscience — 
which never leaves any human being in peace until it has 
nagged him into a perfect condition morally, and keeps punching 
him about frivolous little details of duty, especially at the 
waking morning hour — would not come to insert her thumb 
among the rosy fingers of the dawn. 

Perhaps I do not make myself clear about conscience. Con- 
science is a kind of gastric juice that gnaws upon the very coatings 
of a person's moral nature, if it has no indigestible sin to feed on. 
Of course I know that neither conscience nor gastric juice has 
a thumb. And, to get out of these figures, all I wish to say is, 
that in Cairo, when the traveler is aware of the glow of the morn- 
ing stealing into his room, as if the day were really opened 
gently (not ripped and torn open as it is in our own cold north) 
by a rosy-fingered maiden, and an atmosphere of sweet leisure 
prevails, then Conscience suggests remorselessly: "To-day 
you must go to the Pyramids," or, "You must take your pleasure 
in a drive in the Shoobra road," or "You must explore dirty 
Old Cairo and its Coptic churches," or " You must visit the 
mosques, and see the Howling Derweeshes. 

But for this Conscience, I think nothing would be so sweet as 
the coming of an eastern morning. I fancy that the cool wind 
stirring in the palms is from the pure desert. It may be that 
these birds, so melodiously singing in the garden, are the small 
green birds who eat the fruits and drink the waters of Paradise, 

78 



^'FRA YER IS BETTER THAN SLEEP." 79 

and in whose crops the souls of martyrs abide until Judgment. 
As I lie quite still, I hear the call of a muezzin from a minaret 
not far off, the voice now full and clear and now faint, as he walks 
around the tower to send his entreaty over the dark roofs of 
the city. I am not disturbed by this early call to the unconver- 
ted, for this is not my religion. With the clamor of morning 
church bells in Italy it is different; for to one born in New 
England, Conscience is in the bells. 

Sometimes at midnight I am dimly conscious of the first call 
to prayer, which begins solemnly: 

"Prayer is better than sleep." 

But the night calls are not obligatory, and I do not fully wake. 
The calls during the night are long chants, that of the day- 
time is much shorter. Mr. Lane renders it thus : 

"God is most Great " (four times repeated). "I testify that 
there is no deity but God" (twice). " I testify that Mohammed 
is God's Apostle " (twice). "Come to prayer " (twice). " Come 
to security " (twice). "God is most Great " (twice). " There is 
no deity but God." 

The muezzin whom I hear when the first faint light 
appears in the east, has a most sonorous and sweet tenor 
voice, and his chant is exceedingly melodious. In the perfect 
hush of that hour his voice fills all the air, and might well be 
mistaken for a sweet entreaty out of heaven. This call is 
a long one, and is in fact a confession and proclamation 
as well as a call to prayer. It begins as follows: 

**[I extol] the perfection of God, the Existing forever and 
ever" (three times) : " the perfection of God, the Desired, the 
Existing, the Single, the Supreme: the perfection of God, the 
One, the Sole : the perfection of Him who taketh to Himself, 
in his great dominion, neither female companion nor male 
partner, nor any like unto Him, nor any that is disobedient, 
nor any deputy, nor any equal, nor any offspring. His 
perfection [be extolled] : and exalted be His name. He is a 
Deity who knew what hath been before it was, and called 
into existence what hath been ; and He is now existing, as He 



80 MOSLEMS A T PRA YER. 



was [at the first]. His perfection [be extolled] : and exalted 
be His name." 

And it ends : " O God, bless and save and still beatify the 
beatified Prophet, our lord Mohammed. And may God, 
whose name be blessed and exalted, be well pleased with thee, 

our lord El-Hassan, and with thee, O our lord El-Hoseyn, 
and with thee, O Aboo-Farrag, O Sheykh of the Arabs, and 
with all the favorites [' the welees '] of God. Amen." 

The mosques of Cairo are more numerous than the churches 
in Rome ; there are about four hundred, many of them in 
ruins, but nearly all in daily use. The old ones are the more 
interesting architecturally, but all have a certain attraction. 
They are always open, they are cool quiet retreats out of the 
glare of the sun and the noise of the street; they are 
democratic and as hospitable to the beggar in rags as to the 
pasha in silk ; they offer water for the dusty feet of the . 
pilgrim and a clean mat on which to kneel; and in their 
hushed walls, with no images to distract the- mind and no 
ritual to rely on, the devout worshipper may feel the presence 
of the Unseen. At all hours you will see men praying there 
or reading the Koran, unconscious of any observers. Women 

1 have seen in there occasionally, but rarely, at prayer ; still 
it is not uncommon to see a group of poor women resting in 
a quiet corner, perhaps sewing or talking in low voices. The 
outward steps and open courts are refuges for the poor, the 
friendless, the lazy, and the tired. Especially the old and 
decaying mosques, do the poor frequent. There about the 
fountains, the children play, and under the stately colonnades 
the men sleep and the women knit and sew. These houses 
of God are for the weary as well as for the pious or the 
repentant. 

The mosques are all much alike. We enter by a few or by 
a flight of steps from the street into a large paved court, 
open to the sky, and surrounded by colonnades. There 
is a fountain in the center, a round or octagonal structure of 
carved stone, usually with a fanciful wooden roof; from 
faucets in the exterior, water runs into a surrounding stone 



INTERIOR OF A MOSQUE. 8]_ 

basin about which the worshippers crouch to perform the 
ablutions before prayer. At one side of the court is the 
entrance to the mosque, covered by a curtain. Pushing this 
aside you are in a spacious room lighted from above, perhaps 
with a dome, the roof supported by columns rising to elegant 
arches. You will notice also the peculiar Arabic bracketing- 
work, called by architects " pendentive," fitting the angles and 
the transitions from the corners below to the dome. In 
decaying mosques, where the plaster has fallen, revealing the 
round stick frame-work of this bracketing, the perishable 
character of Saracenic ornament is apparent. 

The walls are plain, with the exception of gilded texts 
from the Koran. Above, on strings extending across the 
room are little lamps, and very often hundreds of ostrich 
eggs are suspended. These eggs are almost always seen in 
Coptic and often in Greek churches. What they signify I do 
not know, unless the ostrich, which can digest old iron, is a 
symbol of the credulity that can swallow any tradition. 
Perhaps her eggs represent the great "cosmic q^'^' which 
modern philosophers are trying to teach (if we may be 
allowed the expression) their grandmothers to suck. 

The stone pavement is coveted with matting and perhaps 
with costly rugs from Persia, Smyrna, and Tunis. The end 
towards Mecca is raised a foot or so ; in it is the prayer niche, 
towards which all worshippers turn, and near that is the high 
pulpit with its narrow steps in front; a pulpit of marble carved, 
or of wood cut in bewildering arabesque, and inlaid with pearl. 

The oldest mosque in Cairo is Ahmed ebn e' Tooloon, built in 
879 A. D., and on the spot where, according to a tradition 
(of how high authority I do not know), Abraham was prevented 
from offering up his son by the appearance of a ram. The 
modern name of this hill is, indeed, Kalat-el-Kebsh, the Citadel 
of the Ram. I suppose the tradition is as well based as is the 
belief of Moslems that it was Ishmael and not Isaac whose life 
was spared. The center of this mosque is an open court, 
surrounded by rows of fine columns, five deep on the East side ; 
and what gives it great interest is the fact that the columns all 
6 



82 ORIENTAL ARCHITECTURE. 

support pointed arches, and exceedingly graceful ones, with a 
slight curve of the horse-shoe at the base. These arches were 
constructed about three centuries before the introduction of the 
pointed arch into Europe ; their adoption in Europe was 
probably one of the results of the Crusades. 

In this same court I saw an old Nebk tree, which grows on 
the spot where the ark of Noah is said to have rested after its 
voyage. This goes to show, if it goes to show anything, that the 
Elood was " general " enough to reach Egypt. 

The mosque of Sultan Hassan, notwithstanding its ruined and 
shabby condition, is the finest specimen of pure Arabic archi- 
tecture in the city ; and its lofty and ornamented porch is, I 
think, as fine as anything of its kind in the world. One may 
profitably spend hours in the study of its exquisite details. I 
often found myself in front of it, wondering at the poetic 
invention and sensitiveness to the beautiful in form, which 
enabled the builders to reach the same effects that their Gothic 
successors only produced by the aid of images and suggestions 
drawn from every department of nature. 

We ascend the high steps, pass through some dilapidated 
parts of the building, which are inhabited, and come to the 
threshold. Here the Moslem removes his shoes, or street- 
slippers, and carries them in his hand. Over this sill we may 
not step, shod as we are. An attendant is ready, however, with 
big slippers which go on over our shoes. Eager, bright little 
boys and girls put them on for us, and then attend us in the 
mosque, keeping a close watch that the slippers are not shuffled 
off. When one does get off, leaving the unholy shoe to touch 
the ground, they affect a sort of horror and readjust it with a 
laugh. Even the children are beginning to feel the general 
relaxation of bigotry. To-day the heels of my shoes actually 
touch the floor at every step, a transgression which the little girl 
who is leading me by the hand points out with a sly shake of 
the head. The attention of this pretty little girl looks like 
affection, but I know by sad experience that it means " back- 
sheesh." It is depressing to think that her natural, sweet, 
coquettish ways mean only that. She is fierce if any other girl 



DEVOTIONAL WASHING. 83 

seeks to do me the least favor, and will not permit my own 
devotion to her to wander. 

The mosque of Sultan Hassan was built in the fourteenth cen- 
tury, and differs from most others. Its great, open court has a 
square recess on each side, over which is a noble arch; the east 
one is very spacious, and is the place of prayer. Behind this, 
in an attached building, is the tomb of Hassan; lights are 
always burning over it, and on- it lies a large copy of the Koran. 

When we enter, there are only a few at their devotions, though 
there are several groups enjoying the serenity of the court; 
picturesque groups, all color and rags ! In a far corner an old 
man is saying his prayers and near him a negro, perhaps a slave, 
also prostrates himself. At the fountain are three or four men 
preparing for devotion ; and indeed the Sprayers begin with the 
washing. The ablution is not a mere form with these soiled 
laborers — though it does seem a hopeless task for men of the 
color of these to scrub themselves. They bathe the head, neck, 
breast, hands and arms, legs and feet ; in fact, they take what 
might be called a fair bath in any other country. In our sight 
this is simply a wholesome " wash " ; to them it is both cleanliness 
and religion, as we know, for Mr. Lane has taught us what that 
brown man in the blue gown is saying. It may help us to 
understand his acts if we transcribe a few of his ejaculations. 

When he washes his face, he says :-^" O God whiten my face 
with thy light, on the day when thou shalt whiten the faces of 
thy favorites ; and do not blacken my face, on the day when 
Thou shalt blacken the faces of thine enemies." Washing his 
right arm, he entreats : — " O God, give me my book in my right 
hand; and reckon with me with an easy reckoning." Passing 
his wetted hand over his head under his raised turban, he says : — 
** O God, cover me with thy mercy, and pour down thy blessing 
upon me ; and shade me under the shadow of thy canopy, on 
the day when there shall be no shade but its shade." 

One of the most striking entreaties is the prayer upon washing 
the right foot : — " O God, make firm my feet upon the Sirat, on 
the day when feet shall slip upon it." " Es Sirat " is the bridge, 
which extends over the midst of Hell, finer than a hair and 



84 



AN IMAM'S SUPPLICATIONS. 



sharper than the edge of a sword, over which all must pass, and 
from which the wicked shall fall into Hell. 

In these mosques order and stillness always reign, and the 
devotions are conducted with the utmost propriety, whether 
there are single worshippers, or whether the mosque is filled 
with lines of gowned and turbaned figures prostrating themselves 
and bowing with one consent. But, much stress as the Moslems 
lay upon prayer, they say that .they do not expect to reach 
Paradise by that, or by any merit of their own, but only by faith 
and forgiveness. This is expressed frequently both in prayers 
and in the sermons on Friday. A sermon by an Imam of a 
Cairo mosque contains these implorings : — " O God ! unloose the 
captivity of the captives, and annul the debts of the debtors ; 
and make this town to be safe and secure, and blessed with 
wealth and plenty, and all the towns of the Moslems, O Lord of 
the beings of the whole earth. And decree safety and health to 
us and to all travelers, and pilgrims, and warriors, and wanderers, 
upon thy earth, and upon thy sea, such as are Moslems, O Lord 
of the beings of the whole world. O Lord, we have acted 
unjustly towards our own souls, and if Thou do not forgive us 
and be merciful unto us, we shall surely be of those who perish. 
I beg of God, the Great, that He may forgive me and you, and 
all the people of Mohammed, the servants of God." 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE PYRAMIDS. 



THE ancient Egyptians of the Upper Country excavated 
sepulchres for their great dead in the solid rocks of the 
mountain; the dwellers in the lower country built a 
mountain of stone in which to hide the royal mummy. In the 
necropolis at Thebes there are the vast rock-tombs of the 
kings ; at Sakkara and Geezeh stand the Pyramids. On the 
upper Nile isolated rocks and mountains cut the sky in 
pyramidal forms ; on the lower Nile the mountain ranges run 
level along the horizon, and the constructed pyramids relieve 
the horizontal lines which are otherwise unbroken except by 
the palms. 

The rock-tombs were walled up and their entrances concealed 
as much as possible, by a natural arrangement of masses of 
rock ; the pyramids were completely encased and the openings 
perfectly masked. False passages, leading through gorgeously 
carved and decorated halls and chambers to an empty pit or 
a blind wall, were hewn in the rock-tombs, simply to mislead 
the violator of the repose of the dead as to the position of the 
mummy. The entrance to the pyramids is placed away from 
the center, and misleading passages run from it, conducting 
the explorer away from the royal sarcophagus. Rock-tomb 
and pyramid were for the same purpose, the eternal security 
of the mummy. 

That purpose has failed ; the burial-place was on too grand 
a scale, its contents were too tempting. There is no security 
for any one after death but obscurity ; to preserve one's body 

85 



8 6 THE AI UMM Y'S FATE. 

is to lose it. The bones must be consumed if they would be 
safe, or else the owner of them must be a patriot and gain a 
forgotten grave. There is nothing that men so enjoy as 
digging up the bones of their ancestors. It is doubtful if 
even the Egyptian plunderers left long undisturbed the great 
tombs which contained so much treasure ; and certainly the 
Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Saracens, left compar- 
atively little for the scientific grave-robbers of our excellent 
age. They did, however, leave the tombs, the sarcophagi, 
most of the sculptures, and a fair share of the preserved dead. 

But time made a pretty clean sweep of the mummy and 
nearly all his personal and real property. The best sculptures 
of his tomb might legally be considered in the nature of 
improvements attaching themselves to the realty, but our 
scientists have hacked them off and carried them away as if 
they were personal estate. We call the Arabs thieves and 
ghouls who prowl in the the tombs in search of valuables. 
But motive is everything ; digging up the dead and taking his 
property, tomb and all, in the name of learning and investi- 
gation is respectable and commendable. It comes to the 
same thing for the mummy, however, this being turned out of 
house and home in his old age. The deed has its comic 
aspect, and it seems to me that if a mummy has any humor 
left in his dried body, he must smile to see what a ludicrous 
failure were his costly efforts at concealment and repose. For 
there is a point where frustration of plans may be so sweeping 
as to be amusing; just as the mummy himself is so ghastly 
that his aspect is almost funny. 

Nothing more impresses the mind with the antiquity of 
Egypt than its vast cemeteries, into which the harvests of the 
dead have been gathered for so many thousands of years. Of 
old Memphis, indeed, nothing remains except its necropolis, 
whose monuments have outlasted the palaces and temples 
that were the wonder of the world. The magnificence of the 
city can be estimated by the extent of its burial-ground. 

On the west side of the Nile, opposite Cairo, and extending 
south along the edge of the desert, is a nearly continuous 



THE OLDEST MONUMENT IN THE WORLD. 87 

necropolis for fifteen miles. It is marked at intervals by 
pyramids. At Geezeh are three large and several small ones; 
at Abooseer are four ; at Sakkara are eleven ; at Dashoor 
are four. These all belonged to the necropolis of Memphis. 
At Geezeh is the largest, that of Cheops or Shoofoo, the third 
king of the fourth dynasty, reigning at Memphis about 4235 
B. c, according to the chronology of Mariette Bey, which every 
new discovery helps to establish as the most probably correct. 
This pyramid was about four hundred and eighty feet high, 
and the length of a side of its base was about seven hundred 
and sixty-four feet; it is now four hundred and fifty feet 
high and its base line is seven hundred and forty-six feet. It 
is big enough yet for any practical purpose. The old 
pyramid at Sakkara is believed to have been built by 
Ouenephes, the fourth king of the first dynasty, and to be the 
oldest monument in the world. Like the mounds of the 
Chaldeans, it is built in degrees or stages, of which there are 
five. Degraded now and buried at the base in its own 
rubbish, it rises only about one hundred and ninety feet above 
the ground. 

It is a drive of two hours from Cairo to the Pyramids of 
Geezeh, over a very good road; and we are advised to go by 
carriage. Hadji is on the seat with the driver, keeping his 
single twinkling eye active in the service of the howadji. 
The driver is a polished Nubian, with a white turban and a 
white gown ; feet and legs go bare. You wouldn't call it a 
stylish turnout for the Bois, but it would be all right if we 
had a gorgeous sais to attract attention from ourselves. 

We drive throiigh the wide and dusty streets of the new 
quarter. The barrack-like palace, on the left of abroad place, 
is the one in which the Khedive is staying just now, though 
he may be in another one to-night. The streets are the same 
animated theater-like scenes of vivid color and picturesque 
costume and indolent waiting on Providence to which we 
thought we should never become accustomed, but which 
are already beginning to lose their novelty. The fellaheen 
are coming in to market, trudging along behind donkeys and 



THE KHEDIVE'S SUMMER PALACES. 



camels loaded with vegetables or freshly cut grass and beans 
for fodder. Squads of soldiers in white uniform pass ; bugle 
notes are heard from Kasr e' Neel, a barrack of troops on 
the river. Here, as in Europe, the great business most 
seriously pursued is the drilling of men to stand straight, 
handle arms, roll their eyes, march with a thousand legs 
moving as one, and shoot on sight other human beings who 
have learned the same tricks. God help us, it is a pitiful 
thing for civilized people. 

The banks of the Nile here above Boolak are high and 
steep. We cross the river on a fine bridge of iron, and drive 
over the level plain, opposite, on a raised and winding 
embankment. This is planted on each side with lebbekh and 
sycamore trees. Part of the way the trees are large and the 
shade ample ; the roots going down into moist ground. 
Much of the way the trees are small and kept alive by 
constant watering. On the right, by a noble avenue are 
approached the gardens and the palace of Gezeereh. We 
pass by the new summer palace of Geezeh. Other large ones 
are in 'process of construction. If the viceroy is measured for 
a new suit of clothes as often as he orders a new palace, his 
tailors must be kept busy. Through the trees we see green 
fields, intersected with ditches, wheat, barley, and beans, the 
latter broad-sown and growing two to three feet high ; here 
and there are lines of palms, clumps of acacias; peasants are 
at work or asleep in the shade ; there are trains of camels, 
and men plowing with cows or buffaloes. Leaving the 
squalid huts that are the remains of once beautiful Geezeh, 
the embankment strides straight across the level country. 

And there before us, on a rocky platform a hundred feet 
higher than the meadows, are the pyramids, cutting the 
stainless blue of the sky with their sharp lines. They master 
the eye when we are an hour away, and as we approach they 
seem to recede, neither growing larger nor smaller, but 
simply withdrawing with a grand reserve. 

I suppose there are more " emotions " afloat about the 
pyramids than concerning any other artificial objects. There 



ENDURING MONUMENTS. 89 



are enough. It becomes constantly more and more difficult 
for the ordinary traveler to rise to the height of these accumu- 
lated emotions, and it is entirely impossible to say how much 
the excitement one experiences on drawing near them results 
from reading and association, and how much is due to these 
simple forms in such desolate surroundings. But there they 
stand, enduring standards, and every visitor seems inclined to 
measure his own height by their vastness, in telling what 
impression they produce upon him. They have been treated 
sentimentally, off-handedly, mathematically, solemnly, historic- 
ally, humorously. They yield to no sort of treatment. They 
are nothing but piles of stone, and shabby piles at that, and they 
stand there to astonish people, Mr. Bayard Taylor is entirely 
right when he says that the pyramids are and will remain 
unchanged and unapproachably impressive however modern 
life may surge about them, and though a city should creep about 
their bases. 

Perhaps they do not appear so gigantic when the visitor is 
close to them as he thought they would from their mass at a 
distance. But if he stands at the base of the great pyramid, 
and casts his eye along the steps of its enormous side and up 
the dizzy height where the summit seems to pierce the, solid 
blue, he will not complain of want of size. And if he walks 
around one, and walks from one to another wading in the loose 
sand and under a midday sun, his respect . for the pyramids 
will increase every moment. 

Long before we reach the ascent of the platform we are met 
by Arab boys and men, sellers of antiquities, and most persistent 
beggars. The antiquities are images of all sorts, of gods, beasts, 
and birds, in pottery or in bronze, articles from tombs, bits of 
mummy-cloth, beads and scarabsei, and Roman copper coins; 
all of them at least five thousand years old in appearance. 

Our carriage is stuck in the sand, and we walk a quarter of a 
mile up the platform, attended by a rabble of coaxing, imploring, 
importunate, half-clad Bedaween. ' Look a here, you take dis ; 
dis ver much old, he from mummy; see here, I get him in 



90 THE BED A WEEN OF THE P YRAMIDS. 

tomb ; one shillin ; in Cairo you get him one pound ; ver sheap. 
You no like ? No anteeka, no money. How much ? " 

" One penny." 

"Ah," ironically, "ket'-ther khayrak (much obliged). You 
take him sixpence. Howadji, say, me guide, you want go top 
pyramid, go inside, go Sphinkee, allee tomba.? " 

Surrounded by an increasing swarm of guides and antiquity- 
hawkers, and beset with offers, entreaties, and opportunities, we 
come face to face with the great pyramid. The ground in front 
of it is piled high with its debris. Upon these rocks, in 
picturesque attitudes, some in the shade and some in the sun, 
others of the tribe are waiting the arrival of pyramid climbers; 
in the intense light their cotton garments and turbans are like 
white paint, brilliant in the sun, ashy in the shadow. All the 
shadows are sharp and deep. A dark man leaning on his spear 
at the corner of the pyramid makes a picture. At a kiosk near 
by carriages are standing and visitors are taking their lunch. 
But men, carriages, kiosk, are dwarfed in this great presence. 
It is, as I said, a shabby pile of stone, and its beauty is only 
that of mathematical angles ; but then it is so big, it casts such 
a shadow ; we all beside it are like the animated lines and dots 
which represent human beings in the etchings of Callot. 

To be rid of importunities we send for the sheykh of the 
pyramid tribe. The Bedaween living here have a sort of 
ownership of these monuments, and very good property they ar-e. 
The tribe supports itself mainly by tolls levied upon visitors. 
The sheykh assigns guides and climbers, and receives the pay 
for their services. This money is divided among the families; 
but what individuals get as' backsheesh or by the sale of 
antiquities, they keep. They live near by, in huts scarcely 
distinguishable from the rocks, many of them in vacant tombs, 
and some have shanties on the borders of the green land. Most 
of them have the appearance of wretched poverty, and villainous 
faces abound. But handsome, intelligent faces and finely 
developed forms are not rare, either. 

The Sheykh, venerable as Jacob, respectable as a New 
England deacon, suave and polite as he traditionally should be, 



OUR GUIDE. 9X 



wears a scarf of camel's hair and a bright yellow and black 
kuffia, put on like a hood, fastened about the head by a cord 
and falling over the shoulders. He apportioned his guides to 
take us up the pyramid and to accompany us inside. I had 
already sent for a guide who had been recommended to me in 
the city, and I found Ali Gobree the frank, manly, intelligent, 
quiet man I had expected, handsome also, and honesty and 
sincerity beaming from his countenance. How well-bred he 
was, and how well he spoke English. Two other men were 
given me ; for the established order is that two shall pull and 
one shall push the visitor up. And it is easier to submit to the 
regulation than to attempt to go alone and be followed by an 
importunate crowd. 

I am aware that every one who writes of the pyramids is 
expected to make a scene of the ascent, but if I were to romance 
I would rather do it in a fresher field. The fact is that the 
ascent is not difficult, unless the person is very weak in the 
legs or attempts to carry in front of himself a preposterous 
stomach. There is no difficulty in going alone ; occasionally 
the climber encounters a step from three to four feet high, but 
he can always flank it. Of course it is tiresome to go up-stairs, 
and the great pyramid needs an " elevator " ; but a person may 
leisurely zig-zag up the side without great fatigue. We went 
straight up at one corner ; the guides insisting on taking me by 
the hand; the boosting Arab who came behind earned his 
money by grunting every time we reached a high step, but he 
didn't lift a pound. 

We stopped frequently to look down and to measure with the 
eye the mass on the surface of which we were like flies. When 
we were a third of the way up, and turned from the edge to the 
middle, the height to be climbed seemed as great as when we 
started. I should think that a giddy person might have 
unpleasant sensations in looking back along the corner and 
seeing no resting-place down the sharp edges of the steps short 
of the bottom, if he should fall. We measure our ascent by the 
diminishing size of the people below, and by the widening of 
the prospect. The guides are perfectly civil, they do not 



92 ^T THE SUMMIT OF THE PYRAiMID. 

threaten to throw us off, nor do they even mention backsheesh. 
Stopping to pick out shells from the nummiilitic limestone 
blocks or to try our glasses on some distant object, we come 
easily to the summit in a quarter of an hour. 

The top, thirty feet square, is strewn with big blocks of stone 
and has a flag-staff. Here ambitious people sometimes breakfast. 
Arabs are already here with koollehs of water and antiquities. 
When the whole party arrives the guides set up a perfunctory 
cheer; but the attempt to give an air of achievement to our 
climbing performance and to make it appear that we are the 
first who have ever accomplished the feat, is a failure. We sit 
down upon the blocks and look over Egypt, as if we were 
used to this sort of thing at home. 

All that is characteristic of Egypt is in sight ; to the west, the 
Libyan hills and the limitless stretch of yellow desert sand ; to 
the north, desert also and the ruined pyramid of Abooroash ; 
to the south, that long necropolis of the desert marked by the 
pyramids of Abooseer, Sakkarah,and Dashoor; on the east, the 
Nile and its broad meadows widening into the dim Delta 
northward, the white line of Cairo under the Mokattam hills, 
and the grey desert beyond. Egypt is a ribbon of green 
between two deserts. Canals and lines of trees stripe the green 
of the foreground ; white sails flicker southward along the river, 
winging their way to Nubia ; the citadel and its mosque shine in 
the sun. 

An Arab offers to run down the side of this pyramid, climb 
the second one, the top of which is still covered with the 
original casing, and return in a certain incredible number of 
minutes. We decline, because we don't like to have a half-clad 
Arab thrust his antics between us and the contemplation of 
dead yet mighty Egypt. We regret our refusal afterwards, for 
there is nothing people like to read about so much as feats of 
this sort. Humanity is more interesting than stones. I am 
convinced that if Martha Rugg had fallen off the pyramid 
instead of the rock at Niagara Falls, people would have looked 
at the spot where she fell, and up at the stairs she came bobbing 
down, with more interest than at the pyramid itself. Nevertheless, 



HADJI'S OPINION. 93 



this Arab, or another did, while we were there, climb the second 
pyramid like a monkey; he looked only a black speck on its side. 

That accidents sometimes happen on the pyramids, I gather 
from the conversation of Hadji, who is full of both information 
and philosophy to-day. 

" Sometime man, he fool, he go up. Man say, ' go this way.* 
Fool, he say, ' let me lone.' Umbrella he took him, threw him 
off; he dead in hundred pieces." 

As to the selling of Scarabsei to travelers, Hadji inclines to the 
side of the poor : — " Good one, handsome one, — one pound. 
Not good for much — but what to do .'* Gentleman he want it ; 
man he want the money." 

For Murray's Guide-Book he has not more respect than 
guides usually have who have acted as interpreters in the 
collection of information for it. For " interpret " Hadji always 
says " spell." 

" When the Murray come here I spell it to the man, the man 
to Murray and him put it down. He don't know anything 
before. He told me, what is this.'' I told him what it is. 
Something," with a knowing nod, "be new after Murray. Look 
here, Murray very old now." 

Hadji understands why the cost of living has gone up so 
much in Egypt. " He was very sheap ; now very different, 
dearer — because plenty people. I build a house, another people 
build a house, and another people, he build a house. Plenty 
men to work, make it dear." I have never seen Hadji's 
dwelling, but it is probably of the style of those that he calls — 
when in the street we ask him what a specially shabby mud-wall 
with a ricketty door in it is — " a brivate house." 

About the Great Pyramid has long waged an archseological 
war. Years have been spent in studying it, measuring it inside 
and outside, drilling holes into it, speculating why this stone is 
m one position and that in another, and constructing theories 
about the purpose for which it was built. Books have been 
written on it, diagrams of all its chambers and passages, with 
accurate measurements of every stone in them, are printed. If 
I had control of a restless genius who was dangerous to the 



94 EXPLORATION UNDER DIFFICULTIES, 

peace of society, I would set him at the Great Pyramid, certain 
that he would have occupation for a lifetime and never come to 
any useful result. The interior has peculiarities, which dis- 
tinguish it from all other pyramids ; and many think that it was 
not intended for a sepulchre mainly ; but that it was erected for 
astronomical purposes, or as a witness to the true north, east, 
south, and west, or to serve as a standard of measure ; not only 
has the passage which descends obliquely three hundred and 
twenty feet from the opening into the bed-rock, and permits a 
view of the sky from that depth, some connection with the 
observation of Sirius and the fixing of the Sothic year ; not only 
is the porphyry sarcophagus that is in the King's Chamber, 
secure from fluctuations of temperature, a fixed standard of 
measure; but the positions of various stones in the pass-ages 
(stones which certainly are stumbling-blocks to everybody who 
begins to think why they are there) are full of a mystic and 
even religious signification. It is most restful, however, to 
the mind to look upon this pyramid as a tomb, and that it 
was a sepulchre like all the others is the opinion of most 
scholars. 

Whatever it was, it is a most unpleasant place to go into. 
But we wanted one idea of Cimmerian darkness, and the 
sensation of being buried alive, and we didn't like to tell 
a lie when asked if we had been in, and therefore we went. 
You will not understand where we went without a diagram, 
and you never will have any idea of it until you go. We, 
with a guide for each person, light candles, and slide and 
stumble down an incline ; we crawl up an incline; we shuffle 
along a level passage that seems interminable, backs and 
knees bent double till both are apparently broken, and the 
torture of the position is almost unbearable ; we get up the 
Great Gallery, a passage over a hundred and fifty feet long, 
twenty-eight high, and seven broad, and about as easy to 
ascend as a logging-sluice, crawl under three or four port- 
cullises, and emerge, dripping with perspiration and covered 
with dust, into the king's chamber, a room thirty-four feet 
long, seventeen broad, and nineteen high. It is built of 



FIVE THOUSAND YEARS OF NIGHT. 95 

magnificent blocks of syenite, polished and fitted together 
perfectly, and contains the lidless sarcophagus. 

If it were anywhere else and decently lighted, it would be a 
stylish apartment; but with a dozen torches and candles 
smoking in it and heating it, a lot of perspiring Arabs shouting 
and kicking up a dust, and the feeling that the weight of the 
superincumbent mass was upon us, it seemed to me too small 
and confined even for a tomb. The Arabs thought they ought 
to cheer here as they did on top ; we had difficulty in driving 
them all out and sending the candles with them, in order that 
we might enjoy the quiet and blackness of this retired 
situation. I suppose we had for once absolute night, a room 
full of the original Night, brother of Chaos, night bottled up 
for four or five thousand years, the very night in which old 
Cheops lay in a frightful isolation, with all the portcullises 
down and the passages sealed with massive stones. 

Out of this blackness the eye even by long waiting couldn't 
get a ray ; a cat's eye would be invisible in it. Some scholars 
think that Cheops never occupied this sarcophagus. I can 
understand his feeling if he ever came in here alive. I think 
he may have gone away and put up " to let " on the door. 

We scrambled about a good deal in this mountain, visited the 
so-called Queen's Chamber, entered by another passage, below 
the King's, lost all sense of time and of direction, and came out, 
glad to have seen the wonderful interior, but welcoming the 
burst of white light and the pure air, as if we were being born 
again. To remain long in that gulf of mortality is to experience 
something of the mystery of death. 

Ali Gobree had no antiquities to press upon us, but he could 
show us some choice things in his house, if we would go there. 
Besides, his house would be a cool place in which to eat our 
lunch. We walked thither, a quarter of a mile down the 
sand slope on the edge of the terrace. We had been wandering 
where the Sphinx was, expecting it to be as conspicuous almost 
as the Pyramids. Suddenly, turning a sand-hill, we came upon 
it, the rude lion's body struggling out of the sand, the human 
head lifted up in that stiff majesty which we all know. 



. 96 THE MYSTERIOUS SPHINX. 

So little of the body is now visible, and the features are so 
much damaged that it is somewhat difficult to imagine what 
impression this monstrous union of beast and man once produced, 
when all the huge proportions stood revealed, and color gave 
a startling life-likeness to that giant face. It was cut from the 
rock of the platform ; its back was patched with pieces of sand- 
stone to make the contour ; its head was solid. It was approached 
by flights of stairs descending, and on the leaved platform where 
it stood were two small temples ; between its paws was a sort of 
sanctuary, with an altar. Now, only the back, head and neck are 
above the drifting sand. Traces of the double crown of Upper 
and Lower Egypt which crowned the head are seen on the fore- 
head, but the crown has gone. The kingly beard that hung 
from the chin has been chipped away. The vast wig — the false 
mass of hair that encumbered the shaven heads of the Egyptians, 
living or dead — still stands out on either side the head, and 
adds a certain dignity. In spite of the broken condition of 
the face, with the nose gone, it has not lost its character. There 
are the heavy eyebrows, the prominent cheek-bones, the full 
lips, the poetic chin, the blurred but on-looking eyes. I think 
the first feeling of the visitor is that the face is marred beyond 
recognition, but the sweep of the majestic lines soon becomes 
apparent ; it is not difficult to believe that there is a smile on 
the sweet mouth, and the stony stare of the eyes, once caught, 
will never be forgotten. 

The Sphinx, grossly symbolizing the union of physical and 
intellectual force, and hinting at one of those recondite myste- 
ries which we still like to believe existed in the twilight of 
mankind, was called Hor-em-Khoo (" the Sun in his resting- 
place"), and had divine honors paid to it as a deity. 

This figure, whatever its purpose, is older than the Pyramid of 
Cheops. It has sat facing the east, on the edge of this terrace of 
tombs, expecting the break of day, since a period that is lost in 
the dimness of tradition. All the achievements of the race, of 
which we know anything, have been enacted since that figure 
was carved. It has seen, if its stony eyes could see, all the process- 
ion of history file before it. Viewed now at a little distance or 



DOMESTIC LIFE IN A TOMB. 97 

with evening shadows on it, its features live again, and it has the 
calmness, the simple majesty that belong to high art. Old writers 
say that the face was once sweet and beautiful. How long had 
that unknown civilization lasted before it produced this art ? 

Why should the Sphinx face the rising sun ? Why does it 
stand in a necropolis like a sleepy warden of the dead who 
sleep ? Was it indeed the guardian of those many dead, the 
mighty who slept in pyramids, in rock-hewn tombs, in pits, 
their bodies ready for any pilgrimage ; and does it look to the 
east expecting the resurrection ? 

Not far from the Sphinx is a marvelous temple of syenite, which 
the sand almost buries ; in a well in one of its chambers was 
found the splendid red-granite statue of Chephren, the builder of 
the second pyramid, a piece of art which succeeding ages did 
not excel. All about the rock plateau are tombs, and in some 
of them are beautiful sculptures, upon which the coloring is 
fresh. The scenes depicted are of common life, the occupations 
and diversions of the people, and are without any religious 
signification. The admirable sculptures represent no gods and 
no funeral mysteries; when they were cut the Egyptian 
theology was evidently not constructed. 

The residence of our gufde is a tomb, two dry chambers in the 
rock, the entrance closed by a wooden door. The rooms are 
large enough for tables and chairs ; upon the benches where the 
mummies have lain, are piled antique fragments of all sorts, set 
off by a grinning skull or a thigh-bone; the floor is covered with 
fine yellow sand. I don't know how it may have seemed to 
its first occupant, but we found it an excellent luncheon place, 
and we could sleep there calmly and securely, when the door 
was shut against the jackals — though I believe it has never 
been objected to a tomb that one couldn't sleep in it. While 
we sip our coffee Ali brings forth his antique images and scarabsei. 
These are all genuine, for Ali has certificates from most of the 
well-known Egyptologists as to his honesty and knowledge of 
antiquities. We are looking for genuine ones ; those offered us 
at the pyramids were suspicious. We say to Ali: — 

"We should like to get a few good scarabsei; we are entirely 
7 



98 SOUVENIRS OF ANCIENT EGYPT. . 

ignorant of them ; but we were sent to you as an honest man. 
You select half a dozen that you consider the best, and we will 
pay you a fair price ; if they do not pass muster in Cairo you 
shall take them back." 

"As you are a friend of Mr. Blank," said Ali, evidently 
pleased with the confidence reposed in him, "you shall have the 
best I have, for about what they cost me." 

The Scarabaeus is the black beetle that the traveler will 
constantly see tumbling about in the sand, and rolling up balls 
of dirt as he does in lands where he has not so sounding a name. 
He was sacred to the old Egyptians as an emblem of immortali- 
ty, because he was supposed to have the power of self-produc- 
tion. No mummy went away into the shades of the nether 
world without one on his breast, with spread-wings attached to it. 
Usually many scarabsei were buried with the mummy — several 
hundreds have been found in one mummy-case. They were 
cut from all sorts of stones, both precious and common, and 
made of limestone, or paste, hardened, glazed and baked. 
Some of them are exquisitely cut, the intaglio on the under side 
being as clean, true, and polished as Greek work. The devices 
on them are various ; the name of a reigning or a famous king, 
in the royal oval, is not uncommon, and an authentic scarabaeus 
•with a royal name is considered of most value. I saw an 
insignificnt one in soft stone and of a grey color, held at a 
hundred pounds; it is the second one that has ever been found 
with the name of Cheops on it. The scarabsei were worn in rings, 
carried as charms, used as seals ; there are large coarse ones of 
blue pottery which seem to have been invitations to a funeral, 
by the inscriptions on them. 

The Scarabaeus is at once the most significant and portable 
souvenir of ancient Egypt that the traveler can carry away, and 
although the supply was large, it could not fill the demand. 
Consequently antique scarabaei are now manufactured in large 
quantities at Thebes, and in other places, and distributed very 
widely over the length of Egypt ; the dealers have them with a 
sprinkling of tte genuine; almost every peasant can produce 
one from his deep pocket ; the women wear them in their bosoms. 



"BACKSHEESH ! BACKSHEESH! HOWADJI !" 99 

The traveler up the Nile is pretty sure to be attacked with the 
fever of buying Scarabsei ; he expects to happen upon one of 
great value, which he will get for a few piastres. It is his inten- 
tion to do so. The Scarabaeus becomes to him the most beauti- 
ful and desirable object in the world. He sees something 
fascinating in its shape, in its hieroglyphics, however ugly it 
may be to untaught eyes. 

Ali selected our scarabsei. They did not seem to us exactly 
the antique gems that we had expected to see, an-d they did not 
give a high idea of the old Egyptian art. But they had a 
mysterious history and meaning; they had shared the repose of 
a mummy perhaps before Abraham departed from Ur. We 
paid for them. We paid in gold. We paid Ali for his services 
as guide. We gave him backsheesh on account of his kindness 
and intelligence, besides. We said good-bye to his honest face 
with regret, and hoped to see him again. 

It was not long before we earnestly desired to meet him. 
He was a most accomplished fellow, and honesty was his best 
policy. There isn't a more agreeable Bedawee at the Pyramids ; 
and yet Ali is a modern Egyptian, just like his scarabsei, all the 
same. The traveler who thinks the Egyptians are not nimble- 
witted and clever is likely to pay for his knowledge to the 
contrary. An accumulated experience of five thousand years, 
in one spot, is not for nothing. 

We depart from the pyramids amid a clamor of importu- 
nity ; prices have fallen to zero ; antiquities old as Pharaoh will 
be given away ; " backsheesh, backsheesh, O Howadji ; " "I 
havn't any bread to mangere, I have six children ; what is a 
piastre for eight persons } " They run after us, they hang upon 
the carriage, they follow us a^mile, begging,. shrieking, howling, 
dropping off one by one, swept behind by the weight of a copper 
thrown to them. 

The shadows fall to the east ; there is a lovely light on the 
plain; we meet long lines of camels, of donkeys, of fellaheen 
returning from city and field. All the west is rosy ; the pyramids 
stand in a purple light ; the Sphinx casts its shade on the yellow 
sand ; its expectant eyes look beyond the Nile into the myste- 
rious East. 



CHAPTER IX. 



PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE. 



'E are giving our minds to a name for our dahabeeh. 
The owners have desired us to christen it, and the 
task is getting heavy. Whatever we are doing; 
guiding a donkey through the mazes of a bazaar ; eating 
oranges at the noon breakfast ; watching the stream of color 
and fantastic apparel, swaying camels and dashing harem- 
equipage with running saises and outriding eunuchs, flowing 
by the hotel ; following a wedding procession in its straggling 
parade, or strolling vacantly along, knocked, jostled, evaded 
by a dozen races in a dozen minutes and lost in the whirl, 
color, excitement of this perpetual masquerade, we are 
suddenly struck with, " what shall we call that boat 1 " 

We want a name that is characteristic of the country and 
expressive of our own feelings, poetic and not sentimental, 
sensible and not common-place. It seems impossible to 
suggest a good name that is not already borne by a daha- 
beeh on the river — names such as the Lotus, the Ibis, the 
Gazelle, Cleopatra, Zenobia, names with an Eastern flavor. 
And we must have not only a name for the boat, but a motto 
or device for our pennant, or "distinguisher flag," as the 
dragoman calls the narrow fifty feet long strip of bunting that 
is to stream from the forAvard yard. We carry at the stern 
the flag of our country, but we float our individuality in the 
upper air. If we had been a bridal party we should of course 
have taken some such device as that of a couple who went up 
the river under the simple but expressive legend of " Nestle- 
down," written on their banner. 

What would jF^?if name a Nile dahabeeh.^ 

100 



THE SEA SONS BE WITCHED. 101 

The days go all too rapidly for us to catch the shifting 
illusions about us. It is not so much what we see of the 
stated sights that can be described, but it is the atmosphere in 
which we live that makes the strangeness of our existence. 
It is as if we had been born into another world. And the 
climate is as strange as the people, the costumes, the habits, 
the morals. The calendar is bewitched. December is a 
mixture of September and July. Alas, yes. There are the 
night-fogs of September, and the mosquitoes of July. You 
cannot tell whether the season is goingbackwards or forwards. 
But for once you are content to let Providence manage it, at 
least so long as there is a north wind, and you forget that the 
sky has any shade other than blue. 

And the prophecy of the poet is realized. The nights are 
filled with music, and the cares that infest the day are 
invariably put off till tomorrow, in this deliciously procrasti- 
nating land. Perhaps, however, Mr. Longfellow would not 
be satisfied with the music ; for it seems to be the nasal 
daughter of Lassitude and Monotony, ancient gods of the 
East. Two or three strings stretched over a sounding skin 
and a parchment drum suffice to express the few notes that an 
Arab musician commands ; harmony does not enter into his 
plan. Yet the people are fond of what they consider music. 
"We hear on all sides at night the picking of strings, the 
throb of the darabooka and the occasional outburst of a 
wailing and sentimental strain. Like all barbarous music, 
this is always minor. When the performers are sailors or 
common strollers, it is doubtless exactly the same music that 
delighted the ancient Egyptians; even the instruments are 
the same, and the method of clapping the hands in accentu- 
ation of the music is unchanged. 

There is a cdfd chantant on one side of the open, tree-grown 
court of a native hotel, in the Ezbekeeh where one may 
hear a mongrel music, that is not inexpressive of both the 
morals and the mixed condition of Cairo to-day. The 
instruments of the band are European ; the tunes played are 
Egyptian. When the first strain is heard we say that it is 



102 . MONGREL MUSIC. 



Strangely wild, a weird and plaintive minor ; but that is the 
whole of it. The strain is repeated over and over again for a 
half hour, as if it were ground out of a coffee-mill, in an 
iteration sufficient to drive the listener insane, the dissolute 
scraping and thumping and barbarous dissonance never chang- 
ing nor ending. From time to time this is varied with 
singing, of the nasal, fine-tooth-comb order, with the most 
extraordinary attempts at shakes and trills, and with all the 
agony of a moonlit cat on a house-top. All this the grave 
Arabs and young Egyptian rakes, who sit smoking, accept 
with entire satisfaction. Later in the evening dancing begins 
and goes on with the strumming, monotonous music till at 
l^^ast the call for morning prayer. 

' In the handsome Ezbekeeh park or garden, where there 
are shady walks and some fine sycamores and banyans to be 
seen, a iriilitary band plays every afternoon, while the for- 
eigners of both sexes, and Egyptian men promenade. Of 
course no Egyptian lady or woman of respectability is ever 
seen in so public a place. In another part of the garden, more 
retired, a native band is always playing at nightfall. In this 
sheltered spot, under the lee of some gigantic rock and 
grotto-work are tables and chairs, and a divan for the band. 
This rock has water pleasantly running through it, but it 
must have been struck by somebody besides Moses, for beer 
is brought out of its cool recesses, as well. Rows of men of 
all colors and costumes may be seen there, with pipe and 
mug and coflfee cup ; and on settees more elevated and next 
the grotto, are always sitting veiled women, in outer wrappers 
of black silk, sometimes open enough to show an underskirt 
of bright color and feet in white slippers. These women 
call for beer or something stronger, and smoke like the men; 
they run no risk in being in this publicity, for they have 
nothing to lose here or elsewhere. Opposite them on a raised 
divan, not unlike a roomy bedstead, sits the band. 

It is the most disreputable of bands. Nothing in the whole 
East so expressed to me its fagged-out dissoluteness as this 
band and its performances. It is a sleepy, nonchalant band,. 



NATIVE LOVE-SONGS. 103 

as if it had been awake all the previous night ; some of its 
members are blear-eyed, some have one eye, some have two ; 
they are in turbans, in tarbooshes, in gowns of soiled silk, of 
blue cotton, of white drilling. It is the feeblest band ; and 
yet it is subject to spurts of bacchantic fervor. Sometimes all 
the instruments are striving together, and then only one or 
two dribble the monotonous refrain; but somehow, with all 
the stoppings to light cigarettes and sip coffee, the tune is kept 
groaning on, in a minor that is as wild as the desert and 
suggestive of sin. 

The instruments are as African as the music. There is 
the darabooka, a drum made of an earthen or wooden cylinder 
with a flaring head, over which is stretched a parchment ; the 
tdr,2i kind of tambourine; kemengehy a viol of two strings, 
with a cocoa-nut sounding-body ; the kanoon, an instrument 
of strings held on the knees, and played with the fingers ; the 
*ood, a sort of guitar with seven double strings; played with a 
plectrum, a slip of vultures' feather held between the thumb 
and finger; and the nay, a reed-flute blown at the end. 

In the midst of the thumbing and scraping, a rakish youth 
at the end, is liable, at any moment, to throw back his head 
and break out in a soft womanish voice, which may go no 
farther than a niSiSoX yah, ah, m-a-r-r, that appears to satisfy his 
yearnings; or it may expand into a droning song, " Yd bendt 
Iskendereeye/i,^' like that which Mr. Lane renders : — 

" Q ye damsels of Alexandria ! 

Your walk over the furniture is alluring : 

Ye wear the Kashmeer shawl with embroidered work, 

And your lips are sweet as sugar." 

Below the divan sit some idlers or supernumeraries, who, 
as inclination moves them, mark the rhythm by striking the 
palms of the hands together, or cry out a prolonged ah-yah, 
but always in a forgetful, uninterested manner, and then 
;Subside into silence, while the picking and throbbing of the 
demoralized tune goes on. It is the " devilish iteration " of it, 
I think, that steals away the senses ; this, and some occult 
immorality in the debased tune, that blots virtue out of the 



104 THE HO WLING DER WEE SHE S. 

world. Yet there is something comic in these blinking owls 
of the night, giving sentimental tongue to the poetic imagery 
of the Eastern love-song — " for a solitary gazelle has taken 
away my soul": — 

" The beloved came to me with a vacillating gait ; 

And her eyelids were the cause of my intoxication. 

I extended my hand to take the cup ; 

And was intoxicated by her eyes. 

O thou in the rose-colored dress ! O thou in the rose-colored dress ! 

Beloved of my heart ! remain with me." 

Or he pipes to the "dark-complexioned, and with two 
white roses " : — 

" O damsel ! thy silk shirt is worn out, and thine arms have become visible, 
And I fear for thee, on account of the blackness of thine eyes. 
I desire to intoxicate myself, and kiss thy cheeks, 
And do deeds that 'Antar did not." 

To all of which the irresponsible chorus, swaying its head, 
responds O ! y-a-a-a-h! And the motley audience sips and 
smokes ; the veiled daughters of sin flash invitation from their 
kohl-stained eyes ; and the cool night comes after the flaring 
heat of the day ; and all things are as they have been for 
thousands of years. It is time to take you to something 
religious. 

The Howling Derweeshes are the most active religionists 
in the East ; I think they spend more force in devotion than 
the Whirling Derweeshes, though they are probably not 
more meritorious. They exceed our own western " Jumpers," 
and by contrast make the worship of our dancing Shakers 
tame and worldly. Of all the physical manifestations of 
religious feeling there is none more v/arming than the zikr of 
these devotees. The derweeshes are not all wanderers, beg- 
gars, saints in patched garments and filthy skin ; perhaps the 
most of those who belong to one of the orders pursue some 
regular occupation ; they are fishermen, laborers in the fields, 
artisans, and water-carriers, and only occasionally join in the 
ceremonies, processions and zikrs of their faith. I have seen 



AN EXCITING PERFORMANCE. 105 

a laborer drop into the ring, take his turn at a zikr^ and drop 
out again, very much as the western man happens in and 
takes a hand in a "free fight," and then retires. 

This mosque at which the Howling Derweeshes perform is 
circular, and large enough to admit a considerable number of 
spectators, who sit, or stand against the wall. Since the 
exercise is one of the sights of the metropolis, and strangers 
are expected, it has a little the air of a dress-parade, and I 
could not but fear that the devotion lost somewhat of its 
singleness of purpose. When we enter, about forty men 
stand in an oblong ring facing each other; the ring is open 
towards the mehhrdb, or niche which marks the direction of 
Mecca. In the opening stands the Sheykh, to direct the 
performance ; and at his left are seated the musicians. 

The derweeshes have divested themselves of turbans, fezes, 
outer gowns and slippers, which lie in a heap in the middle of 
the circle, an indistinguishable mass of old clothes, from which 
when the owners come to draw they cannot fail to get as good 
as they deposited. The ceremony begins with a little uneasiness 
on the part of the musical instruments ; the sheykh bows his 
head and brings the palms of his hands together; and the 
derweeshes, standing close together, with their hands straight at 
their sides, begin slowly to bow and to sway to the right in a 
compound motion which is each time extended. The daraboo- 
ka is beaten softly and the 'ood is picked to a slow measure. 
As the worshippers sway, they chant, Ld ildha illa-lldh (" There 
is no deity but God ") in endless repetition, and imperceptibly 
quickening the enunciation as they bow more rapidly. The 
music gets faster, and now and again one of the roguish boys 
who is thumping the drum breaks out into vocal expression of 
his piety or of his hilarity. The circle is now under full swing, 
the bowings are lower and much more rapid, and the ejaculation 
has become merely Alldh, Alldh^ Alldh, with a strong stress on 
the final syllable. 

The peculiarities of the individual performers begin to come 
out. Some only bow and swing in a perfunctory manner; 
Others throw their strength into the performance, and their 



106 FRENZIED WORSHIPPERS. 



excitement is evinced by the working of the face and the rolling 
of the eyes. Many of them have long hair, which has evidently 
known neither scissors nor comb for years, and is matted and 
twisted in a hopeless tangle. One of the most conspicuous and 
the least clad, a hairy man of the desert, is, exactly in apparel and 
features, like the conventional John the Baptist, His enormous 
shock of faded brown hair is two feet long and its ends are 
dyed yellow with henna. When he bends forward his hair 
sweeps the floor, and when he throws his head back the mass 
whips over with a swish through the air. The most devout 
person, however, is a negro, who puts all the fervor of the tropics 
into his exercise. His ejaculations are rolled out with extraor- 
dinary volume, and his black skin shines with moisture ; there 
is, too, in his swaying and bowing, an abandon, a laxity of 
muscles, and a sort of jerk that belong only to his sympathetic 
race. 

The exercise is every moment growing more rapid, but in 
regular increments, as the music hastens — five minutes, ten 
minutes, fifteen minutes — until there is a very high pressure on, 
the revolutions of the cylinder are almost one in two seconds, 
and the piston moves quicker and quicker. The music, however, 
is not louder, only more intense, and now and then the reed- 
flute executes a Httle obligato, a plaintive strain, that steals 
into the frenzy like the note of a lost bird, sweet as love and sad 
as death. The performers are now going so rapidly that they 
can only ejaculate one syllable, ^lah, 'lah, 'lah, which is aspirated 
in a hoarse voice every time the head is flung forward to the 
floor. The hands are now at liberty, and swing with the body, 
or are held palm to palm before the face. The negro cannot 
longer contain himself but breaks occasionally into a shrill 
"hoo!" He and two or three others have "the power," and 
are not far from an epileptic fit. 

There is a limit, however, to the endurance of the body ; the 
swaying has become so rapid that it is difiicult to distinguish 
faces, and it is impossible for the performers to repeat even a 
syllable of the name of Allah ; all they can do is to push out 
from the depths of the lungs a vast hoarse aspiration of la-a-h, 



THE DESCENDANTS OF THE PROPHET. 107 

which becomes finally a gush exactly like the cut-off of a steam 
engine, short and quick. 

The end has nearly come ; in vain the cymbals clang, in vain 
the drum is beaten harder, and the horn calls to quicker work. 
The limit is reached, and while the reed expresses its plaintive 
fear, the speed slackens, the steam puffs are slower, and with an 
irregular hoo ! from the colored brother, the circle stands still. 

You expect to see them sink down exhausted. Not a bit of 
it. One or two having had enough of it, take their clothes and 
withdraw, and their places are filled by others and by some 
very sensible-looking men, trades-people evidently. After a 
short rest they go through the same or a similar performance, 
and so on for an hour and a half, the variations being mainly in 
the chanting. At the end, each derweesh affectionately embraces 
the Sheykh, kisses his hand without servility, resumes his 
garments and quietly withdraws. They seem to have enjoyed 
the exercise, and certainly they had plenty of it. I should 
like to know what they think of us, the infidel spectators, who 
go to look at their religious devotions as if they were a play. 

That derweesh beggar in a green turban is by that token a 
shereef, or descendant of the Prophet. No one but a shereef 
is allowed to wear the green turban. The shereefs are in all 
ranks of society, many of them wretched paupers and in the 
most menial occupations; the title is inherited from either 
parent and the representatives of the race have become common. 
Some who are entitled to the green turban wear the white 
instead, and prefer to be called Seyd (master or lord) instead 
of Shereef Such a man is Seyd Sadat, the most conspicous 
representative of the family of the Prophet in Cairo. His an- 
cestors for a long period were the trustees of the funds of all the 
great mosques of Cairo, and consequently handled an enormous 
revenue and enjoyed great power. These millions of income 
from the property of the mosques the Khedive has diverted to 
his own purposes by the simple process of making himself their 
trustee. Thus the secular power interferes every few centuries, 
in all countries, with the accumulation of property in religious 
houses. The strict Moslems think with the devout Catholics, 
that it is an impious interference. 



108 AN ANCIENT SAEACENIC HOUSE. 

Seyd Sadat lives in the house that his family have occupied 
for over eight centuries ! It is perhaps the best and richest 
specimen of Saracenic domestic architecture now standing in 
the East. This house, or collection of houses and disconnected 
rooms opening upon courts and gardens, is in some portions of 
it in utter decay ; a part, whose elegant arches and marvelous 
carvings in stone, with elaborate hanging balconies and painted 
recesses, are still studies of beauty, is used as a stable. The 
inhabited rooms of the house are tiled two-thirds of the way to 
the lofty ceilings; the floors are of variegated marbles, and the 
ceilings are a mass of wood in the most intricate arabesque 
carving, and painted in colors as softly blended as the hues of an 
ancient camels' hair shawl. In one of these gorgeous apartments, 
the furniture of which is not at all in keeping with the decora- 
tions (an incongruity which one sees constantly in the East — 
shabbiness and splendor are indissolubly married), we are received 
by the Descendant with all the ceremony of Eastern hospitality. 
Seated upon the divan raised above the fountain at one end of 
the apartment, we begin one of those encounters of compliments 
through an interpreter, out of which the traveler always comes 
beaten out of sight. The Seyd is a handsome intelligent man of 
thirty-five, sleek with good living and repose, and a master of 
Oriental courtesy. His attire is all of silk, the blue color predom- 
inating ; his only ornament is a heavy gold chain about the 
neck. We frame long speeches to the Seyd, and he appears to 
reply with equal verboseness, but what he says or what is said 
to him we never know. The Eastern dragoman is not averse to 
talking, but he always interprets in a sort of short-hand that is 
fatal to conversation. I think the dragomans at such interviews 
usually translate you into what they think you ought to say, and 
give you such a reply as they think will be good for you. 

" Say to his lordship that we thank him for the honor of being 
permitted to pay our respects to a person so distinguished." 

" His excellency (who has been talking two minutes) say you 
do him too much honor." 

" We were unwilling to leave Cairo without seeing the residence 
of so celebrated a family." 



THE FLEA AND THE COPT. 109 

" His excellency (who has now got fairly going) feels in deep 
the visit of strangers so distinguish." 

" It is a. great pleasure also to us to see an Arab house so old 
and magnificent." 

" His excellency (who might have been reciting two chapters 
of the Koran in the interval) say not to mention it ; him sorry it 
is not more worth you to see." 

The attendants bring sherbet in large and costly cups, and 
chibooks elegantly mounted, and the conversation flounders 
along. The ladies visit the harem above, and we look about the 
garden and are shown into room after room, decorated in 
endless variety and with a festivity of invention and harmony of 
color which the moderns have lost. The harem turns out to be, 
like all ordinary harems, I think, only mysterious on the outside. 
We withdraw with profuse thanks, frittered away through our 
dragoman, and " His excellency say he hope you have pleasant 
voyage and come safe to your family and your country." 
About the outer court, and the door where we mount our 
donkeys, are many idlers in the sun, half beggars, half atten- 
dants, all of whom want backsheesh, besides the regular servants 
who expect a fee in proportion to the " distinguish " of the 
visitor. They are probably not unlike the clients of an ancient 
Roman house, or the retainers of a baronial lord of the middle 
ages. 

If the visitor, however, really desires to see the antiquities of 
the Christian era, he will ride out to Old Cairo, and mouse 
about among the immense rubbish heaps that have been piled 
there since Fostat (as the ancient city was called) was reduced 
to ashes, more than seven hundred years ago, by a fire which 
raged nearly two months. There is the ruined mosque of Amer, 
and there are the quaint old Coptic convents and churches, 
built about with mud walls, and hidden away amid mounds of 
rubbish. To these dust-filled lanes and into these mouldering 
edifices the antiquarian will gladly go. These churches are the 
land of the flea and the home of the Copt. Anything dingier, 
darker, dirtier, doesn't exist. To one of them, the Sitt Miriam, 
Church of Our Lady, we had the greatest difficulty in getting 



110 HISTORICAL CURIOSITIES. 

admission. It is up-stairs in one of the towers of the old Roman 
gateway of Babylon. It is a small church, but it has five aisles 
and some very rich wood-carving and stone-mosaics. It was 
cleaner than the others because it was torn to pieces in the 
process of renovation. In these churches are hung ostrich eggs, 
as in the mosques, and in many of them are colored marbles, 
and exquisite mosaics of marble, mother-of-pearl, and glass, 
Aboo Sirgeh, the one most visited, has a subterranean chapel 
which is the seat of an historical transaction that may interest 
some minds. There are two niches in the wall, and in one of 
them, at the time of the Flight into Egypt, the Virgin Mary 
rested with the Child, and in the other St. Joseph reposed. 
That is all. 

A little further on, by the river bank, opposite the southern 
end of the island of Rhoda, the Moslems show you the spot 
where little Moses lay in his little basket, when the daughter of 
Pharaoh came down to bathe (for Pharaoh hadn't a bath-tub in 
his house) and espied him. The women of the Nile do to-day 
exactly what Pharaoh's daughter and her maidens did, but there 
are no bulrushes at this place now, and no lad of the promise of 
Moses is afloat. 

One can never have done with an exploration of Cairo, with 
digging down into the strata of overlying civilizations, or 
studying the shifting surface of its Oriental life. Here, in this 
Old Cairo, was an ancient Egyptian town no doubt ; the Romans 
constructed here massive walls and towers; the followers of St. 
Mark erected churches ; the friends of Mohammed built mosques ; 
and here the mongrel subjects of the Khedive, a mixture of 
ancient Egyptian, conquering Arabian, subject Nubian, enslaved 
Soudan, inheritors of all civilizations and appropriators of none, 
kennel amid these historic ash-heaps, caring neither for their 
past nor their future. 

But it is drawing towards the middle of December ; there are 
signs that warn us to be off to the south. It may rain. There 
are symptoms of chill in the air, especially at night, and the 
hotel, unwarmed, is cheerless as a barn, when the sun does not 
shine. Indeed, give Cairo the climate of London in November 



PHYSIC ON A LARGE SCALE. HI 

and everybody would perish in a week. Our preparations drift 
along. It is always "tomorrow." It requires a week to get the 
new name of the boat printed on a tin. The first day the 
bargain for it is made; the work is to be finished bookra^ 
tomorrow. Next day the letters are studied. The next the tin 
is prepared. The next day is Friday or Wednesday or some 
other day in which repose is required. And the next the 
workman comes to know what letters the howadji desires to 
have upon the tin, and how big a sign is required. 

Two oth"fer necessary articles remain to be procured ; rockets 
and other fire-works to illuminate benighted Egypt, and med- 
icines. As we were not taking along a physician and should 
find none of those experimenting people on the Nile, I did not 
see the use of carrying drugs. Besides we were going into the 
one really salubrious region of the globe. But everybody takes 
medicines; you must carry medicines. The guide-book gives 
you a list of absolutely essential, nasty drugs and compounds, 
more than you would need if you were staying at home in an 
artificial society, with nothing to do but take them, and a 
physician in every street. 

I bought chunks of drugs, bottles of poisons, bundles of foul 
smells and bitter tastes. And then they told me that I needed 
balances to weigh them in. This was too much. I was willing 
to take along an apothecary's shop on this pleasure excursion ; 
I was not willing to become an apothecary. No, I said, if I am 
to feed out these nauseous things on the Nile, I will do it 
generously, according to taste, and like a physician, never 
stinting the quantity. I would never be mean about giving 
medicine to other people. And it is not difficult to get up a 
reputation for generosity on epsom salts, rhubarb and castor oil. 

We carried all these drugs on the entreaty of friends and the 
druggist, who said it would be very unsafe to venture so far 
without them. But I am glad we had them with us. The 
knowledge that we had them was a great comfort. To be sure 
we never experienced a day's illness, and brought them all back, 
except some doses that I was able to work off" upon the crew. 
There was a gentle black boy, who had been stolen young out 



112 LA YING IN A STORE OF ROCKETS. 

of Soudan, to whom it was a pleasure to give the most disagreeable 
mixtures; he absorbed enormous doses as a lily drinks dew, and 
they never seemed to harm him. The aboriginal man, whose 
constitution is not weakened by civilization, can stand a great 
amount of doctor's stuff. The Nile voyager is earnestly 
advised to carry a load of drugs with him ; but I think we 
rather overdid the business in castor-oil ; for the fact is that 
the people in Nubia fairly swim in it, and you can cut the 
cane and suck it whenever you feel like it. 

By all means, go drugged on your pleasure voyage. It is 
such a cheerful prelude to it, to read that you will need blue- 
pills, calomel, rhubarb, Dover's powder, James's powder, 
carbolic acid, laudanum, quinine, sulphuric acid, sulphate of 
zinc, nitrate of silver, ipecacuanha, and blistering plaster. A 
few simple directions go with these. If you feel a little 
unwell, take a few blue pills, only about as many as you can 
hold in your hand ; follow these with a little Dover's powder, 
and then repeat, if you feel worse, as you probably will ; 
when you rally, take a few swallows of castor-oil, and drop 
into your throat some laudanum ; and then, if you are alive, 
drink a dram of sulphuric acid. The consulting friends then 
generally add a little rice-water and a teaspoonful of brandy. 
In the opinion of our dragoman it is scarcely reputable to 
go up the Nile without a store of rockets and other pyrotech- 
nics. Abd-el-Atti should have been born in America. He 
would enjoy a life that was a continual Fourth of July. He 
would like his pathway to be illuminated with lights, blue, 
red, and green, and to blaze with rockets. The supreme 
moment of his life is when he feels the rocket-stick tearing 
out of his hand. The common fire-works in the Mooskee he 
despised ; nothing would do but the government-made, which 
are very good. The passion of some of the Egyptians for 
fire-arms and gunpowder is partially due to the prohibition. 
The government strictly forbids the use of guns and pistols 
and interdicts the importation or selling of powder. On the 
river a little powder and shot are more valued than money. 
We had obtained permission to order some rockets manu- 



OFFICIAL LIFE IN EGYPT. II3 



factured at the government works, and in due time we went 
with Abd-el-Atti to the bureau at the citadel to pay for them. 
The process was attended with all that deliberation which 
renders life so long and valuable in the East. 

We climbed some littered and dusty steps, to a roof terrace 
upon which opened several apartments, brick and stucco 
chambers with cement floors, the walls whitewashed, but 
yellow with time and streaked with dirt. These were 
government offices, but office furniture was scarce. Men and 
boys in dilapidated gowns were sitting about on their heels 
smoking. One of them got up and led the way, and pulling 
aside a soiled curtain showed us into the presence of a bey, a 
handsomely dressed Turk, with two gold chains about his 
neck, squatting on a ragged old divan at one end of the little 
room; and this divan was absolutely all the furniture that 
this cheerless closet, which had one window obscured with 
dust, contained. Two or three officers were waiting to get the 
bey's signature to papers, and a heap of documents lay beside 
him, with an inkhorn, on the cushions. Half-clad attendants 
or petitioners shuffled in and out of the presence of this head 
of the bureau. Abd-el-Atti produced his papers, but they 
were not satisfactory, and we were sent elsewhere. 

Passing through one shabby room after another, we came 
into one dimmer, more stained and littered than the others. 
About the sides of the room upon low divans sat, cross-legged, 
the clerks. Before each was a shabby wooden desk which 
served no purpose, however, but to hold piles of equally shabby 
account books. The windows were thick with dust, the floor 
was dirty, the desks, books, and clerks were dirty. But the 
clerks were evidently good fellows, just like those in all 
government offices — nothing to do and not pay enough to make 
them uneasy to be rich. They rolled cigarettes and smoked 
continually; one or two of them were casting up columns of 
figures, holding the sheet of paper in the left hand and calling 
each figure in a loud voice (as if a little doubtful whether the 
figure would respond to that name) ; and some of them wrote a 
little, by way of variety. When they wrote the thin sheet of 
S 



114 AN INTERVIEW WITH THE BEY. 

paper was held in the left hand and the writing done upon the 
palm (as the Arabs always write); the pen used was a blunt 
xeed and the ink about as thick as tar. The writing resulting 
from these unfavorable conditions is generally handsome. 

Our entry and papers were an event in that office, and the 
documents became the subject of a general conversation. 

^ Other public business (except the cigarettes) was suspended, 

: and nearly every clerk gave his opinion on the question, 
whatever it was. I was given a seat on a rickety divan, 
coffee was brought in, the clerks rolled cigarettes for me and 
the business began to open ; not that anybody showed any 
special interest in it, however. On the floor sat two or three 
boys, eating their dinner of green bean leaves and some 
harmless mixture of grease and flour; and a cloud of flies 
settled on them undisturbed. What service the ragged boys 
rendered to the government I cbuld not determine. Abd-el- 
Atti was bandying jocularities with the clerks, and directing 
the conversation now and then upon the rockets. 

In course of time a clerk found a scrap of paper, daubed 

.one side of it with Arabic characters, and armed with this we 
went to another office and got a signature to it. This, with 

,the other documents, we carried to another room much like 
the first, where the business appeared to take a fresh start ; 
that is, we sat down and talked ; and gradually induced one 
official after another to add a suggestion or a figure or two. 
Considering that we were merely trying to pay for some 
rockets that were ready to be delivered to us, it did seem to 
me that almost a whole day was too much to devote to the 
affair. But I was mistaken. The afternoon was waning when 
we went again to the Bey. He was still in his little " cubby," 
and made room for me on the divan. A servant brought 
coffee. We lighted cigarettes, and, without haste, the bey 
inked the seal that hung to his gold chain, wet the paper and 
impressed his name in the proper corner. We were now in a 
condition to go to the treasury office and pay. 

I expected to see a guarded room and heavily bolted safes. 
Instead of this there was no treasury apartment, nor any 



WAITING FOR THE WIND. 



115 



strong box. But we found the " treasury " walking about in 
one of the passages, in the shape of an old Arab in a white 
turban and faded yellow gown. This personage fished out of 
his deep breast-pocket a rag of a purse, counted out some 
change, and put what we paid him into the same receptacle. 
The Oriental simplicity of the transaction was pleasing. And 
the money ought to be safe, for one would as soon think of 
robbing a derweesh as this yellow old man. 

The medicine is shipped, the rockets are on board, the crew 
have been fitted out with cotton drawers, at our expense, (this 
garment is an addition to the gown they wear), the name of 
the boat is almost painted, the flags are ready to hoist, and 
the dahabeeh has been taken from Boulak and is moored 
above the drawbridge. We only want a north wind. 



CHAPTER X. 

ON THE NILE. 

'E have taken possession of our dahabeeh, which lies 
moored under the bank, out of the current, on the 
west side of the river above the bridge. On the top of 
the bank are some structures that seem to be only mounds 
and walls of mud, but they are really " brivate houses," and 
each one has a wooden door, with a wooden lock and key. 
Here, as at every other rod of the river, where the shore 
will permit, the inhabitants come to fill their water-jars, to 
wash clothes, to bathe, or to squat on their heels and wait for 
the Nile to run dry. 

And the Nile is running rapidly away. It sweeps under 
the arches of the bridge like a freshet, with a current of about 
three miles an hour. Our sandal (the broad clumsy row-boat 
which we take in tow) is obliged to aim far above its intended 
landing-place when we cross, and four vigorous rowers 
cannot prevent its drifting rapidly down stream. The Nile is 
always in a hurry on its whole length ; even when it spreads 
over flats for miles, it keeps a channel for swift passage. It is 
the only thing that is in a hurry in Egypt; and the more one 
sees it the stronger becomes the contrast of this haste with 
the flat valley through which it flows and the apathetic 
inhabitants of its banks. ,- 

We not only have taken possession of our boat, but we have 
begun housekeeping in it. We have had a farewell dinner- 
party on board. Our guests, who are foreigners, declare that 
they did not suppose such .a dinner possible in the East \ a 

116 



THE "RIP VAN WINKLE." 117 

better could not be expected in Paris. We admit that such 
dinners are not common in this hungry world out of New 
York. Even in New York the soup would not have been 
made of lentils. 

We have passed a night under a mosquito net, more 
comfortably than on shore to be sure, but we are anxious to 
get into motion and change the mosquitoes, the flies, the fleas 
of Cairo for some less rapacious. It is the seventeenth of 
December. We are in the bazaars, buying the last things, 
when, at noon we perceive that the wind has shifted. We 
hasten on board. Where is the dragoman ! " Mohammed 
Efifendi Abd-el-Atti goin' bazaar come directly," says the 
waiter. At half-past two the stout dragoman slides off" his 
donkey and hastens on board with all the speed compatible 
with short legs, out of breath, but issuing a storm of orders 
like a belated captain of a seventy-two. He is accompanied 
by a black boy bearing the name of our dahabeeh, rudely 
painted on a piece of tin, the paint not yet dry. The 
dragoman regards it with some pride, and well he may, for it 
has cost time and trouble. No Arab on the river can 
pronounce the name, but they all understand its signification 
when the legend attached to it is related, and having a 
similar tale in the Koran, they have no objection to sail in a 
dahabeeh called the 

RIP VAN WINKLE. 

The name has a sort of appropriateness in the present 
awakening of Egypt to modern life, but exactly what it is we 
cannot explain. 

We seat ourselves on deck to watch the start. There is as 
much noise and confusion as if the boat were on fire. The 
moment has come to cast off, when it is discovered that two 
of the crew are absent, no doubt dallying in some coffee-house. 
We cannot wait, they must catch us as they can. The stake is 
pulled up ; the plank is drawn in ; the boat is shoved off 
from its sand bed with grunting and yah-hoo-ing, some of the 
crew in the water, and some pushing with poles ; the great sail 



118 ON THE NILE. 



drops down from the yard and the corner is hauled in to a 
wild chorus, and we take the stream. For a moment it 
seems as if we should be carried against the bridge ; but the 
sail is large, the wind seizes us, and the three-months' voyage 
has begun. 

We are going slowly but steadily, perhaps at the rate of 
three or four miles an hour, past the receding city, drawing 
away from the fleet of boats and barges on the shore and the 
multitudinous life on its banks. It is a scene of color, 
motion, variety. The river is alive with crafts of all sorts, 
the shores are vocal with song, laughter, and the unending 
"chaff" of a river population. Beyond, the spires and domes 
of the city are lovely in the afternoon light. The citadel and 
the minarets gleam like silver against the purple of the 
Mokattam hills. We pass the long white palace of the Queen- 
mother; we are abreast the isle of Rhoda, its yellow palace 
and its ancient Nilometer. In the cove at Geezeh are 
passenger-dahabeehs, two flying the American flag, with 
which we exchange salutes as we go. The people on their 
decks are trying with a telescope to make out the device on 
our pennant at the yard-arm. It affords occupation for a 
great many people at different times during the voyage. 
Upon a white ground is a full sun, in red; following it in red 
letters is the legend Post Nubila PhcEbus ; it is the motto on 
the coat of arms of the City of Hartford. Here it signifies 
that we four Hartford people, beginning this voyage, exchange 
the clouds of New England for the sun of Egypt. The flag 
extends beyond the motto in a bifurcated blue streamer. 

Flag, streamer and sail take the freshening north wind. A 
smaller sail is set aft. The reis crouches on the bow, watching 
the channel; the steersman, a grave figure, pushes slowly 
back and forth the long iron handle of the tiller at the stern ; 
the crew, waiting for their supper, which is cooking near the 
mast, begin to sing, one taking the solo and the others 
striking in with a minor response; it is not a song but a one- 
line ejaculation, followed by a sympathetic and barbaric 
assent in chorus. 



THE START. HQ 



The shores glide past like that land of the poet's dream 
where " it is always afternoon " ; reposeful and yet brilliant. 
The rows of palms, the green fields, the lessening minarets, 
the groups of idlers in flowing raiment, picturesque in any 
attitudes they assume, the depth of blue above and the 
transparent soft air — can this be a permanent condition, or is 
it only the scene of a play ? 

In fact, we are sailing not only away from Europe, away from 
Cairo, into Egypt and the confines of mysterious Africa; we 
are sailing into the past. Do you think our voyage is merely 
a thousand miles on the Nile ? We have committed ourselves 
to a stream that will lead us thousands of years backwards in the 
ages, into the depths of history. When we loosed from Cairo 
we let go our hold upon the modern. As we recede, perhaps 
we shall get a truer perspective, and see more correctly the width 
of the strip of time which we call "our era." There are the 
pyramids of Geezeh watching our departure, lifting themselves 
aloft in the evening sky; there are the pyramids of Sakkara, 
sentinels of that long past into which we go. 

It is a splendid start, for the wind blows steadily and we 
seem to be flying before it. It is probable that we are making 
five miles an hour, which is very well against such a current. 
Our dahabeeh proves to be an excellent sailer, and we have the 
selfish pleasure of passing boat after boat, with a little ripple of 
excitement not enough to destroy our placid enjoyments. It is 
much pleasanter to lift your hat to the travelers on a boat that 
you are drawing ahead of than it is to those of one that is 
dropping your boat astern. 

The Nile voyage is so peculiar, and is, in fact, such a luxuri- 
ous method of passing a winter, that it may be well to say a 
little more concerning our boat. It is about one hundred and 
twenty feet long, and eighteen broad in the center, with a flat 
bottom and no keel ; consequently it cannot tack or sail contrary 
to the wund. In the bow is the cook's " cubby " with the range, 
open to the weather forward. Behind it stands the mast, some 
forty feet high, and on the top of it is lashed the slender yard, 
which is a hundred feet long, and hangs obliquely. The enor- 



120 ON BOARD OUR DAHABEEH. 

mous triangular sail stretches the length of the yard and its 
point is hauled down to the deck. When it is shifted, the rope 
is let go, leaving the sail flapping, the end of the yard is 
carried round the mast and the sail is hauled round in the 
opposite direction, with an amount of pulling, roaring, jabbering, 
and chorusing, more than would be necessary to change the 
course of an American fleet of war. The flat, open forward deck 
is capable of accommodating six rowers on a side. It is floored 
over now, for the sweeps are only used in descending. 

Then comes the cabin, which occupies the greater part of the 
boat, and makes it rather top-heavy and difficult of manage- 
ment in an adverse wind. First in the cabin are the pantry and 
dragoman's room ; next a large saloon, used for dining, furnish- 
ed with divans, mirrors, tables, and chairs, and lighted by large 
windows close together. Next are rows of bedrooms, bath- 
room etc; a passage between leads to the after or lounging 
cabin, made comfortable with divans and Eastern rugs. Over the 
whole cabin runs the deck, which has sofas and chairs and an 
awning, and is good promenading space. The rear portion of 
it is devoted to the steersman, who needs plenty of room for the 
sweep of the long tiller. The steering apparatus is of the rudest. 
The tiller goes into a stern-post which plays in a hole big 
enough for four of it, and creakingly turns a rude rudder. 

If you are familiar with the Egyptian temple you will see that 
our dahabeeh is built on this plan. If there is no pylon, there 
is the mast which was always lashed to it. Then comes the 
dromos of sphinxes, the forward deck, with the crew sitting along 
the low bulwarks ; the first cabin is the hall of columns, or 
vestibulum ; behind it on each side of the passage are various 
chambers ; and then comes the adytum or sanctuary — the inner 
cabin. The deck is the flat roof upon which wound the solemn 
processions ; and there is a private stairway to the deck just as 
there was always an inner passage to the roof from one of the 
small chambers of the temple. 

The boat is manned by a numerous company whose appear- 
ance in procession would excite enthusiam in any American 
town. Abd-el-Atti has for companion and clerk his nephew, a 



ITS OFFICERS AND CREW. 121 

young Egyptian, (employed in the telegraph office) but in Frank 
dress, as all government officials are required to be. 

The reis, or captain, is Hassan, Aboo Seyda, a rather stately 
Arab of sixty years, with a full turban, a long gown of blue 
cotton, and bare-footed. He walks the deck with an ease and 
grace that an actor might envy; there is neither stiffiiess nor 
strut in it; it is a gait of simple majesty which may be inherited 
from generations of upright ancestors, but could never be 
acquired. Hassan is an admirable figure-head to the expedition, 
but he has no more pluck or authority than an old hen, and 
was of not much more use on board than a hen would be in a 
chicken-hatching establishment. 

Abdel Hady Hassed,the steersman, is a Nubian from the First 
Cataract, shiny black in color, but with regular and delicate 
features. I can see him now, with his turban set well back on 
his head, in a loose, long-sleeved, brown garment, and without 
stockings or slippers, leaning against his tiller and looking 
straight ahead with unchanging countenance. His face had the 
peculiarity, which is sometimes seen, of appearing always to 
have a smile on it. He was born with that smile ; he will die 
with it. An admirable person, who never showed the least 
excitement. That man would run us fast on a sand-bank, put 
us on a rock in plain sight, or let his sail jibe, without changing 
a muscle of his face, and in the most agreeable and good-natured 
manner in the world. And he never exhibited the least petu- 
lance at his accidents. I hope he will be rewarded for the 
number of hours he patiently stood at that tiller. The reis 
would take the helm when Abdel wanted to say his prayers or 
to eat his simple meals ; but, otherwise, I always found him at 
his post, late at night or in the early morning, gazing around on 
Egypt with that same stereotyped expression of pleasure. 

The cook, Hasaneyn Mahrowan (the last name has an Irish 
sound, but the first is that of the sacred mosque where is buried 
the head of the martyr El Hoseyn) is first among. his craft, and 
contrives to produce on his little range in the bow a dinner that 
would have made Rameses II. a better man. He is always at 
his post, like the steersman, and no matter what excitement or 



122 TYPES OF EGYPTIAN RACES. 

peril we may be in, Hasaneyn stirs his soup or bastes his chicken 
with perfect sang froid. The fact is that these Orientals have 
got a thousand or two thousand years beyond worry, and never 
feel any responsibility for what others are doing. 

The waiter, a handsome Cairene, is the perfection of a 
trained servant, who understands signs better than English. 
Hoseyn Ali also rejoices in a noble name. Hasan and Hoseyn 
are, it is well known, the " two lords of the youths of the 
people of Paradise, in Paradise "; they were grandsons of the 
Prophet. Hoseyn was slain at the battle of the Plain of 
Karbala. Hoseyn is the most smartly dressed fellow on 
board. His jacket and trousers are of silk ; he wears a gay 
kuffia about his fez and his waist is girded with a fine 
Cashmere shawl. The fatal defect in his dress is that the full 
trowsers do not quite meet the stockings. There is always 
some point of shabbiness or lack of finish in every Oriental 
object. 

The waiter's lieutenant is an Abyssinian boy who rejoices 
in the name of Ahman Abdallah (or, " Slave of God ") ; and 
the cook's boy is Gohah ebn Abdallah (" His father slave of 
God"). This is the poetical way of putting their condition; 
they w^ere both slaves of Abd-el-Atti, but now, he says, he has 
freed them. For Gohah he gave two napoleons when the lad 
was new. Greater contrast could not be between two colored 
boys. Ahman is black enough, but his features are regular 
and well made, he has a bright merry eye, and is quick in all 
his intuitions, and intellectually faithful to the least particular. 
He divines the wants of his masters by his quick wit, and 
never neglects or forgets anything. Gohah is from the 
Soudan, and a perfect Congo negro in features and texture of 
skin — lips protruding and nose absolutely level with his 
cheeks ; as faithful and affectionate as a Newfoundland dog, a 
mild, gentle boy. What another servant would know through 
his sharpened interest, Gohah comprehends by his affections. 

I have described these persons, because they are types of 
the almost infinite variety of races and tribes in Egypt. 
Besides these there are fourteen sailors, and no two of the 



THE KINGDOM OF THE ''STICK:' 123 

same shade or with similar features. Most of them are of 
Upper Egypt, and two or three of them are Nubians, but I 
should say that all are hopelessly mixed in blood. Ahmed, 
for instance, is a Nubian, and the negro blood comes out in 
him in his voice and laugh and a certain rolling antie 
movement of the body. Another sailor has that flush of red 
under dark in the face which marks the quadroon. The dress 
of the crew is usually a gown, a pair of drawers, and a turban^ 
Ahmed wears a piece of Turkish toweling round his head. 
The crew is an incongruous lot altogether; a third of them 
smoke hasheesh whenever they can get it ; they never obey 
an order without talking about it and suggesting something 
different; they are all captains in fact; they are rarely quiet, 
jabbering, or quarreling, or singing, when they are not hauling 
the sail, hoisting us from a sandbar, or stretched on deck in 
deep but not noiseless slumber. You cannot but like the good- 
natured rascals. 

An irresponsible, hard-working, jolly, sullen, contradictory 
lot, of big children, who, it is popularly reported, need a 
koorbdg (a whip of hippopotamus hide) to keep them in the way 
of industry and obedience. It seems to me that a little kindness 
would do better than a good deal of whip. But the kindness 
ought to have begun some generations back. The koorbag is 
the legitimate successor of the stick, and the Egyptians have 
been ruled by the stick for a period of which history reports 
not to the contrary. In the sculptures on the earliest tombs, 
laborers are driven to their tasks with the stick. Sailors on 
the old Nile boats are menaced with the stick. The overseer 
in the field swings the stick. Prisoners and slaves are 
marshalled in line with the stick. The stick is to-day also the 
one visible and prevalent characteristic of the government of 
Egypt. And I think that it is a notion among the subject 
classes, that a beating is now and then good for them. They 
might feel neglected without it. I cannot find that Egypt 
was ever governed in any other way than on the old plan of 
force and fear. 

If there is anything that these officers and sailors do not 



124: "3"IIE ''FALSE" PYRAMID OF MA YDOON. 

understand, it is the management of a Nile boat. But this is 
anticipating. Just now all goes as merrily as a colored ball. 
The night is soft, the moon is half full ; the river spreads out 
in shining shallows; the shores are dim and show lines of 
feathery palms against the sky; we meet or pass white sails 
•which flash out of the dimness and then vanish ; the long line 
of pyramids of Sakkara is outlined beyond the palms ; now 
there is a light on shore and a voice or the howling of a dog 
is heard ; along the bank by the ruins of old Memphis a 
jackal runs barking in the moonlight. By half-past nine we 
are abreast the pyramids of Dashoor. A couple of dahabeehs 
are laid up below for the night, and the lights from their rows 
of cabin windows gleam cheerfully on the water. 

We go right on, holding our way deeper and deeper into 
this enchanted country. The night is simply superb, such a 
wide horizon, such brilliancy above ! Under the night, the 
boat glides like a phantom ship ; it is perfectly steady, and we 
should not know we were in motion but for the running 
ripple at the sides. By this lulling sound we sleep, having 
come, for once in the world, into a country of tranquillity, 
where nothing need ever be done till tomorrow, for tomorrow 
is certain to be like to-day. 

When we came on deck at eight o'clock in the morning 
after " flying " all night as on birds' wings, we found that we 
had made thirty-five miles, and were almost abreast of the 
False Pyramid of Maydoom,so called because it is supposed 
to be built about a rock ; a crumbled pyramid but curiously 

. constructed, and perhaps older than that of Cheops. From a 
tomb in the necropolis here came the two life-size and striking 

, figures that are in the Boulak Museum at Cairo. The statues, 
carved in calcareous limestone, represent two exceedingly 
respectable and intelligent looking persons, who resemble 
each other enough to be brother and sister; they were 
probably alive in the third dynasty. They sit up now, with 
hands on knees, having a bright look on their faces as if they 
hadn't winked in five thousand years, and were expecting 
company. 



DREAMING ON THE RIVER. 125 

I said we were "flying" all night. This needs qualification. 
We went aground three times and spent a good part of the 
night in getting off. It is the most natural thing in naviga- 
tion. We are conscious of a slight grating, then a gentle 
lurch, not enough to disturb a dream, followed, however, by 
a step on deck, and a jabber of voices forward. The sail is 
loosed ; the poles are taken from the rack and an effort is 
made to shove off by the use of some muscle and a good deal 
of chorus; when this fails, the crew jump overboard and we 
hear them splashing along the side. They put their backs to 
the boat and lift, with a grunting '■'• Euh-he-, euh-he^* which 
changes into a rapid " halee, halee, halee," as the boat slides 
off; and the crew scramble on board to haul tight the sail,, 
with an emphatic " Yah ! Moham^i?^, Yah ! Moham;^^^." 

We were delayed some hours altogether, we learn. But it 
was not delay. There can be no delay on this voyage ; for 
there is no one on board who is in any haste. Are we not the 
temporary owners of this boat, and entirely irresponsible for 
any accident, so that if it goes down with all on board, and 
never comes to port, no one can hold us for damages .? 

The day is before us, and not only the day, but, Providence 
permitting, a winter of days like it. There is nothing to be 
done, and yet we are too busy to read even the guide-book. 
There is everything to be seen ; it is drifting past us, we are 
gliding away from it. It is all old and absolutely novel. If 
this is laziness that is stealing over us, it is of an alert sort. 
In the East, laziness has the more graceful title of 'resignation ; 
but we have not come to that condition even ; curiosity is 
constantly excited, and it is a sort of employment to breathe 
this inspiring air. 

We are spectators of a pageant that never repeats itself; for 
although there is a certain monotony in the character of the 
river and one would think that its narrow strips of arable 
land would soon be devoid of interest, the scenes are never 
twice alike. The combinations vary, the desert comes near 
and recedes, the mountains advance in bold precipices or fall 
away; the groups of people, villages, trees, are always shifting. 



126 CURIOUS CRAFTS, 



And yet, in fact, the scenery changes little during the day. 
There are great reaches of river, rapidly flowing, and wide 
bends across which we see vessels sailing as if in the meadows. 
The river is crowded all day with boats, pleasure dahabeehs, 
and trading vessels uncouth and picturesque. The passenger 
dahabeeh is long, handsomely painted, carries an enormous sail 
on its long yard, has a national flag and a long streamer; and 
groups of white people sit on deck under the awning ; some of 
them are reading, some sketching, and now and then a man 
rises and discharges his shot-gun at a flock of birds a half a 
mile beyond its range. 

The boats of African traders are short, high-pooped, and have 
the rudder stepped out behind. They usually carry no flag, 
and are dirty and lack paint, but they carry a load that would 
interest the most blase European. Those bound up-stream, 
under full sail, like ourselves, are piled with European boxes 
and bales, from stem to stern ; and on top of the freight, in the 
midst of the freight, sitting on it, stretched out on it, peeping 
from it, is another cargo of human beings, men, women and 
children, black, yellow, clothed in all the hues of heaven and 
the rags of earth. It is an impassive load that stares at us with 
incurious, unwinking eyes. 

The trading boats coming down against the current, are even 
more strange and barbarous. They are piled with merchandise, 
but of a different sort. The sails and yards are down, and the 
long sweeps are in motion, balanced on outriggers, for the 
forward deck is filled, and the rowers walk on top of the goods 
as they move the oars to and fro. How black the rowers are ! 
How black everybody on board is ! They come suddenly upon 
us, like those nations we have read of, who sit in great darkness. 
The rowers are stalwart fellows whose basalt backs shine in the 
sun as they bend to the oar ; in rowing they walk towards the 
cabin and pull the heavy oars as they step backwards, and every 
sweep is accompanied by the burst of a refrain in chorus, a wild 
response to a line that has been chanted by the leader as they 
stepped forwards. The passengers sit immoveable in the sun 
and regard us with a calmness and gravity which are only 



BOAT-RACES ON THE NILE. 12Y 

attainable near the equatorial regions, where things approach in 
equilibrium. 

Sometimes we count nearly one hundred dahabeehs in sight, 
each dipping or veering or turning in the sun its bird-wing sail — 
the most graceful in the world. A person with fancies, who is 
watching them, declares that the triangular sails resemble quills 
cut at the top for pens, and that the sails, seen over the tongue 
of land of a long bend ahead, look like a procession of goose 
quills. 

The day is warm enough to call out all the birds ; flocks of 
wild geese clang overhead, and companies of them, ranks on 
ranks, stand on the low sand-dunes ; there are pelicans also, 
motionless in the shallow water near the shore, meditating like a 
derweesh on one leg, and not caring that the thermometer does 
mark 74^. Little incidents entertain us. We like to pass the 
Dongola, flying " Ohio" from its yard, which took advantage of 
our stopping for milk early in the morning to go by us. We 
overhaul an English boat and have a mildly exciting race with 
her till dark, with varying fortune, the boats being nearly a 
match, and the victory depending upon some trick or skill on 
the part of the crew. All the party look at us, in a most unsym- 
pathetic manner, through goggles, which the English always put 
on whenever they leave the twilight of England. I do not know 
that we have any right to complain of this habit of wearing 
wire eye-screens and goggles; persons who have it mean no 
harm by it, and their appearance is a source of gratification to 
others. But I must say that goggles have a different effect in 
different lights. When we were sailing slowly past the English- 
man, the goggles regarded us with a feeble and hopeless look. 
But when the Englishman was, in turn, drawing ahead of us, 
the goggles had a glare of " Who the devil are you.? " Of course 
it was only in the goggles. For I have seen many of these races 
on the Nile, and passengers always affect an extreme indifference, 
leaving all demonstrations of interest to the crews of the boats. 

The two banks of the river keep all day about the same 
relative character — the one sterile, the other rich. On the east, 
the brown sand licks down almost to the water ; there is only a 



128 NATIVE VILLAGES ON THE BANKS. 

strip of green ; there are few trees, and habitations only at long^ 
intervals. Only a little distance back are the Mokattam hills, 
which keep a rarely broken and level sky-line for two hundred 
and fifty miles south of Cairo. 

The west side is a broad valley. The bank is high and con- 
tinually caving in, like the alluvial bottoms of the Missouri ; it 
is so high that from our deck we can see little of the land. There 
are always, however, palm-trees in sight, massed in groves, 
standing in lines, or waving their single tufts in the blue. These 
are the date-palms, which have no branches on their long poles ;. 
each year the old stalks are cut off for fuel, and the trunk, a 
mass of twisted fibres, comes to have a rough bark, as if the tree 
had been shingled the wrong way. Stiff in form and with only 
the single crown of green, I cannot account for its effect of 
grace and beauty. It is the life of the Nile, as the Nile is life 
to it. It bears its annual crop of fruit to those who want it, and 
a crop of taxes for the Khedive. Every palm pays in fact a poll- 
tax, whether it brings forth dates or not. 

Where the bank slopes we can see the springing wheat and 
barley darkly green; it is sown under the palms even, for no 
foot of ground is left vacant. All along the banks are shadoofs, 
at which men in black stand all day raising water, that flows 
back in regulated streams ; for the ground falls slightly away 
from the height of the bank. At intervals appears a little collec- 
tion of mud hovels, dumped together without so much plan as 
you would find in a beaver settlement, but called a village, and 
having a mud minaret and perhaps a dome. An occasional 
figure is that of a man plowing with a single ox ; it has just the 
stiff square look of the sculptures in the tombs. 

Now and then where a zig-zag path is cut, or the bank slopes, 
women are washing clothes in the river, or groups of them are 
filling their water-jars. They come in files from the villages and 
we hear their shrill voices in incessant chatter. These country- 
women are invariably in black or dark brown ; they are not 
veiled, but draw their head shawl over the face as our boat 
passes. Their long gowns are drawn up, exposing bare feet and 
legs as they step into the stream. The jars are large and heavy 



SONGS OF THE SAILORS. 129 

when unfilled, and we marvel how they can raise them to their 
heads when they are full of water. The woman drags her jar 
out upon the sand, squats before it, lifts it to her head with her 
hands, and then rises steadily and walks up the steep bank and 
over the sand, holding her robe with one hand and steadying the 
jar with the other, with perfect grace and ease of motion. The 
strength of limbs required to raise that jar to the head and then 
rise with it, ought to be calculated by those in our own land who 
are striving to improve the condition of woman. 

We are still flying along with the unfailing wind, and the 
merry progress communicates its spirit to the crew. Before 
sunset they get out their musical instruments, and squatting in 
a circle on the forward deck, prepare to enjoy themselves. 
One thumps and shakes the tambourine, one softly beats with 
his fingers the darabooka drum, and another rattles castanets. 
All who are not so employed beat time by a jerking motion of 
the raised hands, the palms occasionally coming together when 
the rhythm is properly accented. The leader, who has a very 
good tenor voice, chants a minor and monotonous love-song to 
which the others respond, either in applause of the sentiment or 
in a burst of musical enthusiasm which they cannot contain, 
Ahmed, the Nubian, whose body is full of Congoism, enters into 
it with a delightful aba?tdon, swaying from side to side and 
indulging in an occasional shout, as if he were at a camp-meeting. 
His ugly and good-natured face beams with satisfaction, an 
expression that is only slightly impaired by the vacant place 
where two front teeth ought to shine. The song is rude and 
barbarous but not without a certain plaintiveness ; the song, 
and scene belong together. In this manner the sailors of the 
ancient Egyptians amused themselves without doubt; their 
instruments were the same ; thus they sat upon the ground, thus 
they clapped hands, thus they improvised ejaculations to the 
absent beloved: — 

" The night ! The night ! O thou with sweet hands ! 
Holding the dewy peach." 

The sun goes down, leaving a rosy color in the sky, that 
9 



130 VESTIGES OF ANCIENT CIVILIZA TION. 

changes into an ashes-of-roses color, that gradually fades into 
the indefinable softness of night punctured with stars. 

We are booming along all night, under the waxing moon. 
This is not so much a voyage as a flight, chased by the north 
wind. The sail is always set, the ripples are running always 
along the sides, the shores slide by as in a dream ; the reis is at 
the bow, the smiling steersman is at the helm; if we were 
enchanted we could not go on more noiselessly. There is 
something ghostly about this night-voyage through a land so 
imperfectly defined to the senses but so crowded with history. 
If only the dead who are buried on these midnight shores were 
to rise, we should sail through a vast and ghastly concourse 
packing the valley and stretching away into the desert. 

About midnight I step out of the cabin to look at the night. 
I stumble over a sleeping Arab. Two sailors, set to hold the 
sail-rope and let it go in case of a squall of wind, are nodding 
over it. The night is not at all gloomy or mysterious, but in all 
the broad sweep of it lovely and full of invitation. We are just 
passing the English dahabeeh, whose great sail is dark as we 
approach, and then takes the moon full upon it as we file 
abreast. She is hugging the bank and as we go by there is a 
snap. In the morning Abd-el-Atti says that she broke the tip 
of her yard against the bank. At any rate she lags behind like 
a crippled bird. 

In the morning we are in sight of four dahabeehs, but we 
overhaul and pass them all. We have contracted a habit of 
doing it. One of them gets her stern-sprit knocked off as she 
sheers before us, whereupon the sailors exchange compliments, 
and our steersman smiles just as he would have done if he had 
sent the Prussian boat to the bottom. The morning is delicious, 
not a cloud in the sky, and the thermometer indicating a 
temperature of 56''; this moderates speedily under the sun, but 
if you expected an enervating climate in the winter on the Nile 
you will be disappointed ; it is on the contrary inspiring. 

We pass the considerable town of Golosaneh, not caring very 
much about it ; we have been passing towns and mounds and 
vestiges of ancient and many times dug-up civilizations, day and 



THE RELIGION OF THE COPTS. 131 

night. We cannot bother with every ash-heap described in the 
guide-book. Benisooef, which has been for thousands of years 
an enterprising city, we should like to have seen, but we went 
by in the night. And at night most of these towns are as black 
as the moon will let them be, lights being very rare. We usually 
receive from them only the salute of a barking dog. Inland 
from Golosaneh rises the tall and beautiful minaret of Semaloot, 
a very pretty sight above the palm-groves ; so a church spire 
might rise out of a Connecticut meadow. At lo o'clock we 
draw near the cliffs of Gebel e' Tayr, upon the long flat 
summit of which stands the famous Coptic convent of Sitteh 
Miriam el Adra, ** Our Lady Mary the Virgin," — called also 
Dayr el Adra. 

We are very much interested in the Copts, and are glad of the 
opportunity to see something of the practice of their religion. 
For the religion is as peculiar a's the race. In fact, the more 
one considers the Copt, the more difficult it is to define him. 
He is a descendant of the ancient Egyptians, it is admitted, and 
he retains the cunning of the ancients in working gold and 
silver; but his blood is crossed with Abyssinian, Nubian, 
Greek and Arab, until the original is lost, and to-day the 
representatives of the pure old Egyptian type of the sculptures 
are found among the Abyssinians and the Noobeh (genuine 
Nubians) more frequently than among the Copts. The Copt 
usually wears a black or brown turban or cap ; but if he wore a 
white one it would be difficult to tell him from a Moslem. The 
Copts universally use Arabic ; their ancient language is prac- 
tically dead, although their liturgy and some of their religious 
books are written in it. This old language is supposed to be 
the spoken tongue of the old Egyptians. 

The number of Christian Copts in Egypt is small — but still 
large enough ; they have been persecuted out of existence, or 
have voluntarily accepted Mohammedanism and married among 
the faithful. The Copts in religion are seceders from the ortho- 
dox church, and their doctrine of the Trinity was condemned 
by the council of Chalcedon ; they consequently hate the Greeks 
much more than "they hate the Moslems. They reckon St. 
Mark their first patriarch. 



132 THE MONKS OF GEBEL E' TA YR. 

Their religious practice is an odd jumble of many others. 
Most of them practice circumcision. The baptism of infants is 
held to be necessary; for a child dying unbaptized will be 
blind in the next life. Their fasts are long and strict ; in their 
prayers they copy both Jews and Moslems, praying often and 
with endless repetitions. They confess before taking the sacra- 
ment; they abstain from swine's flesh, and make pilgrimages to 
Jerusalem. Like the Moslems they put off their shoes on 
entering the place of worship, but they do not behave there 
with the decorum of the Moslem; they stand always in the 
church and as the service is three or four hours long, beginning 
often at daybreak, the long staff or crutch upon which they lean 
is not a useless appendage. The patriarch, who dwells in Cairo, 
is not, I think, a person to be envied. He must be a monk 
originally and remain unmarried, and this is a country where 
marriage is so prevalent. Besides this, he is obliged to wear 
always a woolen garment next the skin, an irritation in this 
climate more constant than matrimony. And report says that 
he lives under rules so rigid that he is obliged to be waked up, 
if he sleeps, every fifteen minutes. I am inclined to think, 
however, that this is a polite way of saying that the old man 
has a habit of dropping off to sleep every quarter of an hour. 

The cliffs of Gebel e' Tayr are of soft limestone, and seem to 
be two hundred feet high. In one place a road is cut down to 
the water, partly by a zig-zag covered gallery in the face of the 
rock, and this is the usual landing-place for the convent. The 
convent, which is described as a church under ground, is in the 
midst of a mud settlement of lay brothers and sisters, and the 
whole is surrounded by a mud wall. From below it has the 
appearance of an earthwork fortification. The height commands 
the river for a long distance up and down, and from it the 
monks are on the lookout for the dahabeehs of travelers. It is 
their habit to plunge into the water, clothed on only with their 
professions of holiness, swim to the boats, climb on board and 
demand "backsheesh " on account of their religion. 

It is very rough as we approach the cliffs, the waves are high, 
and the current is running strong. We fear we are to be 



A ROYAL LUXURY. I33 

disappointed, but the monks are superior to wind and waves. 
While we are yet half a mile off, I see two of them in the water, 
their black heads under white turbans, bobbing about in the 
tossing and muddy waves. They make heroic efforts to reach 
us; we can hear their voices faintly shouting: Ana Christian, O 
Mowadji, "I am a Christian, O ! Howadji." 

" We have no doubt you are exceptional Christians," we shout to 
them in reply, " Why don't you come aboard — back-s-h-e-e-s-h!" 

They are much better swimmers than the average Christian 
with us. But it is in vain. They are swept by us and away 
from us like corks on the angry waves, and even their hail of 
Christian fellowship is lost in the whistling wind. When we are 
opposite the convent another head is seen bobbing about in the 
water ; he is also swept below us, but three-quarters of a mile 
down-stream he effects a landing on another dahabeeh. As he 
climbs into the jolly-boat which is towed behind and stands 
erect, he resembles a statue in basalt. 

It is a great feat to swim in a current so swift as this and 
lashed by such a wind. I should like to have given these monks 
something, if only to encourage so robust a religion. But 
none of them succeeded in getting on board. Nothing 
happens to us as to other travelers, and we have no opportu- 
nity to make the usual remarks upon the degraded appearance 
of these Coptic monks at Dayr el Adra. So far as I saw them 
they were very estimable people. 

At noon we are driving past Minieh with a strong wind. 
It appears to be — but if you were to land you would find that 
it is not — a handsome town, for it has two or three graceful 
minarets, and the long white buildings of the sugar-factory, 
with its tall chimneys, and the palace of the Khedive, stretching 
along the bank give it an enterprising and cheerful aspect. 
This new palace of his Highness cost about half a million of 
dollars, and it is said that he has never passed a night in it. 
I confess I rather like this ; it must be a royal sensation to be 
able to order houses made like suits of clothes without ever 
even trying them on. And it is a relief to see a decent 
building and a garden now and then, on the river. 



134 THE REAL GUM-ARABIC. 

We go on, however, as if we were running away from the 
sheriff, for we cannot afford to lose the advantage of such a 
wind. Along the banks the clover is growing sweet and 
green as in any New England meadow in May, and donkeys 
are browsing in it tended by children ; a very pleasant sight, 
to see this ill-used animal for once in clover and trying to 
bury his long ears in luxury. Patches of water-melon plants 
are fenced about by low stockades of dried rushes stuck in the 
sand — for the soil looks like sand. 

This vegetation is not kept alive, however, without constant 
labor; weeds never grow, it is true, but all green things 
would speedily wither if the shadoofs were not kept in 
motion, pouring the Nile into the baked and thirsty soil. 

These simple contrivances for irrigation, unchanged since the 
time of the Pharaohs, have already been described. Here two 
tiers are required to lift the water to the level of the fields ; the 
first dipping takes it into a canal parallel with the bank, and 
thence it is raised to the top. Two men are dipping the leathern 
buckets at each machine, and the constant bending down and 
lifting up of their dark bodies are fatiguing even to the spectator. 
Usually in barbarous countries one pities the woman; but I 
suppose this is a civilized region, for here I pity the men. The 
women have the easier tasks of washing clothes in the cool 
stream, or lying in the sand. The women all over the East have 
an unlimited capacity for sitting motionless all day by a running 
stream or a pool of water. 

In the high wind the palm-trees are in constant motion 
tossing their feather tufts in the air; some of them are blown 
like an umbrella turned wrong side out, and a grove presents 
the appearance of crowd of people overtaken by a sudden 
squall. The acacia tree, which the Arabs call the sont^ the 
acanthus of Strabo {Mimosa Nilotica) begins to be seen with 
the palm. It is a thorny tree, with small yellow blossoms and 
bears a pod. But what interests us most is the gum that 
exudes from its bark ; for this is the real Gum Arabic ! That 
Heaven has been kind enough to let us see that mysterious gum 
manufacturing itself! The Gum Arabic of our childhood. 



HASHEESH-SMOKING. 135 

How often have I tried to imagine the feelings of a distant 
and unconverted boy to whom Gum Arabic was as common as 
spruce gum to a New England lad. 

As I said, we go on as if we were evading the law ; our daha- 
beeh seems to have taken the bit in its teeth and is running 
away with us. We pass everything that sails, and begin to feel 
no pride in doing so; it is a matter of course. The other daha- 
beehs are left behind, some with broken yards, I heard reports 
afterwards that we broke their yards, and that we even drowned 
a man. It is not true. We never drowned a man, and never 
wished to. We were attending to our own affairs. The crew 
were busy the first day or two of the voyage in cutting up their 
bread and spreading it on the upper deck to dry — heaps of it, 
bushels of it. It is a black bread, made of inferior unbolted 
wheat, about as heavy as lead, and sour to the uneducated 
taste. The Egyptians like it, however, and it is said to be very 
healthful. The men gnaw chunks of it with relish, but it is 
usually prepared for eating by first soaking it in Nile-water and 
warming it over a fire, in a big copper dish. Into the " stodge " 
thus made is sometimes thrown some " greens " snatched from 
the shore. The crew seat themselves about this dish when it is 
ready, and each one dips his right hand into the mass and claws 
out a mouthful The dish is always scraped clean. Meat is 
very rarely had by them, only a few times during the whole 
voyage ; but they vary their diet by eating green beans, lettuce, 
onions, lentils, and any sort of " greens " they can lay hands on. 
The meal is cooked on a little fire built on a pile of stones near 
the mast. When it is finished they usually gather about the fire 
for a pull at the " hubble-bubble." This is a sort of pipe with 
a cocoa-nut shell filled with water, through which the smoke 
passes. Usually a lump of hasheesh is put into the bowl with 
the tobacco. A puff or two of this mixture is enough; it sets 
the smoker coughing and conveys a pleasant stupor to his brain. 
Some of the crew never smoke it, but content themselves with 
cigarettes. And the cigarettes, they are always rolling up and 
smoking while they are awake. 

The hasheesh-smokers are alternately elated and depressed, 



136 EGYP TIAN ROBBERS. 

and sometimes violent and noisy. A man addicted to the habit 
is not good for much; the hasheesh destroys his nerves and 
brain, and finally induces idiocy. Hasheesh intoxication is the 
most fearful and prevalent vice in -Egypt. The government has 
made many attempts to stop it, but it is too firmly fixed ; the use 
of hasheesh is a temporary refuge from poverty, hunger, and all 
the ills of life, and appears to have a stronger fascination 
than any other indulgence. In all the towns one may see the 
dark little shops where the drug is administered, and generally 
rows of victims in a stupid doze stretched on the mud benches. 
Sailors are so addicted to hasheesh that it is almost impossible 
to make up a decent crew for a dahabeeh. 

Late in the afternoon we are passing the famous rock-tombs 
of Beni Hassan, square holes cut in the face of the cliff, high 
up. With our glasses we can see paths leading to them over 
the debris and along the ledges. There are two or three rows 
of these tombs, on different ledges ; they seem to be high, dry, 
and airy, and I should rather live in them, dead or alive, than 
in the mud hovels of the fellaheen below. These places of 
sepulchre are older than those at Thebes, and from the 
pictures and sculptures in them, more than from any others, 
the antiquarians have reconstructed the domestic life of the 
ancient Egyptians. This is a desolate spot now ; there is a 
decayed old mud village below, and a little south of it is the 
new town ; both can barely be distinguished from the brown 
sand and rock in which and in front of which they stand. 
This is a good place for thieves, or was before Ibraheem 
Pasha destroyed these two villages. We are warned that this 
whole country produces very skillful robbers, who will swim 
off and glean the valuables from a dahabeeh in a twinkling. 

Notwithstanding the stiff breeze the thermometer marks 
74°- but both wind and temperature sink with the sun. 
Before the sun sets, however, we are close under the east 
bank, and are watching the play of light on a magnificent 
palm-grove, beneath which stand the huts of the modern 
village of Sheykh Abadeh. It adds romance to the loveliness 
of the scene to know that this is the site of ancient Antinoe, 



SITTING IN DARKNESS. I37 



built by the Emperor Adrian. To be sure we didn't know it 
till this moment, but the traveler warms up to a fact of this 
kind immediately, and never betrays even to his intimate 
friends that he is not drawing upon his inexhaustible memory. 

"That is the ancient Antinoe, built by Adrian." 

Oh, the hypocrisy and deceit of the enthusiastic, 

"/yit?" 

"Yes, and handsome Antinoiis was drowned here in the 
Nile." 

" Did they recover his body .? " 

Upon the bank there are more camels, dogs, and donkeys 
than we have seen all day ; buffaloes are wallowing in the 
muddy margin. They are all in repose ; the dogs do not 
bark, and the camels stretch their necks in a sort of undulatory 
expression of discontent, but do not bleat, or roar, or squawk, 
or make whatever the unearthly noise which they make is 
called. The men and the women are crouching in the shelter 
of their mud walls, with the light of the setting sun upon 
their dark faces. They drav/ their wraps closer about them 
to protect themselves from the north wind, and regard us 
stolidly and without interest as we go by. And when the 
light fades, what is there for them 1 No cheerful lamp, no 
book, no newspaper. They simply crawl into their kennels 
and sleep the sleep of "inwardness" and peace. 

Just here the arable land on the east bank is broader than 
usual, and there was evidently a fine city built on the edge of 
the desert behind it. The Egyptians always took waste and 
desert land for dwellings and for burial-places, leaving every 
foot of soil available for cultivation free. There is evidence 
all along here of a once much larger population, though I 
doubt if the east bank of the river was ever much inhabited. 
The river banks would support many more people than we 
find here if the land were cultivated with any care. Its 
fertility, with the annual deposit, is simply inexhaustible, and 
it is good for two and sometimes three crops a year. But we 
pass fields now and then that are abandoned, and others that 
do not yield half what they might. The people are oppressed 



138 PROFITABLE AGRICULTURE. 

with taxes and have no inducement to raise more than is 
absolutely necessary to keep them alive. But I suppose this 
has always been the case in Egypt. The masters have 
squeezed the last drop from the people, and anything like an 
accumulation of capital by the laborers is unknown. The 
Romans used a long rake, with fine and sharp teeth, and I 
have no doubt that they scraped the country as clean as the 
present government does. 

The government has a very simple method of adjusting its 
taxes on land and crops. They are based upon the extent of 
the inundation. So many feet rise, overflowing such an area, 
will give such a return in crops ; and tax on this product 
can be laid in advance as accurately as when the crops are 
harvested. Nature is certain to do her share of the work ; there 
will be no frost, nor any rain to spoil the harvest, nor any 
freakishness whatever on the part of the weather. If the 
harvest is not up to the estimate, it is entirely the fault of the 
laborer, who has inadequately planted or insufficiently watered. 
In the same manner a tax is laid upon each palm-tree, and if 
it does not bear fruit, that is not the fault of the government. 

There must be some satisfaction in farming on the Nile. 
You are always certain of the result of your labor,* Whereas, 
in our country farming is the merest lottery. The season will 
open too wet or too dry, the seed may rot in the ground, the 



*It should be said, however, that the ancient Egyptians found the agricul- 
tural conditions beset with some vexations. A papyrus in the British 
Museum contains a correspondence between Ameneman, the librarian of 
Rameses II, and his pupil Pentaour, who wrote the celebrated epic upon the 
exploits of that king on the river Orontes. One of the letters describes the 
life of the agricultural people : — " Have you ever conceived what sort of life 
the peasant leads who cultivates the soil? Even before it is ripe, insects 
destroy part of his harvest. . . Multitudes of rats are in the field ; next 
come invasions of locusts, cattle ravage his harvest, sparrows alight in flocks 
on his sheaves. If he delays to get in his harvest, robbers come to carry it 
off with him ; his horse dies of fatigue in drawing the plow ; the tax-collec- 
tor arrives in the district, and has with him men armed with sticks, negroes 
with palm-branches. All say, ' Give us of your corn,' and he has no means of 
escaping their exactions. Next the unfortunate wretch is seized, bound, and 
carried off by force to work on the canals ; his wife is bound, his children 
are stripped. And at the same time his neighbors have each of them his. 
own trouble." 



SUCCESSFUL VOYAGING. I39 

young plant may be nipped with frost or grow pale for want 
of rain, the crop runs the alternate hazards of drought or 
floods, it is wasted by rust or devoured by worms; and, to 
cap the climax, if the harvest is abundant and of good qualitv, 
the price goes down to an unremunerative figure. In Egypt 
you may scratch the ground, put in the seed, and then go to 
sleep for three months, in perfect certainty of a good harvest, 
if only the shadoof and the sakiya are kept in motion. 

By eight o'clock in the evening, on a falling wind, we are 
passing Rhoda, whose tall chimneys have been long in sight. 
Here is one of the largest of the Khedive's sugar-factories, 
and a new palace which has never been occupied. We are 
one hundred and eighty-eight miles from Cairo, and have 
made this distance in two days, a speed for which I suppose 
history has no parallel ; at least our dragoman says that such 
a run has never been made before at this time of the year, and 
we are quite willing to believe a statement which reflects so 
much honor upon ourselves, for choosing such a boat and 
such a dragoman. 

This Nile voyage is nothing, after all ; its length has been 
greatly overestimated. We shall skip up the river and back 
again before the season is half spent, and have to go some- 
where else for the winter. A man feels all-powerful, so long 
as the wind blows; but let his sails collapse and there is not a 
more crest-fallen creature. Night and day our sail has been 
full, and we are puffed up with pride. 

At this rate we shall hang out our colored lanterns at 
Thebes on Christmas night. 



CHAPTER XI. 



PEOPLE ON THE RIVER BANKS. 



THE morning puts a new face on our affairs. It is Sunday, 
and the most devout could not desire a quieter day. There 
is a thick fog on the river, and not breeze enough stirring 
to show the stripes on our flag ; the boat holds its own against 
the current by a sort of accumulated impulse. During the night 
we may have made five miles altogether, and now we barely 
crawl. We have run our race ; if we have not come into a 
haven, we are at a stand-still, and it does not seem now as if we 
ever should wake up and go on again. However, it is just as 
well. Why should we be tearing through this sleepy land at the 
rate of four miles an hour ? 

The steersman half dozes at the helm ; the reis squats near 
him watching the flapping sails ; the crew are nearly all asleep 
on the forward deck, with their burnouses drawn over their head 
and the feet bare, for it is chilly as late as nine o'clock, and the 
thermometer has dropped to 54°. Abd-el-Atti slips his beads 
uneasily along between his fingers, and remembers that when he 
said that we would reach Asioot in another day, he forgot to 
ejaculate; ■' God willing." Yet he rises and greets our coming 
from the cabin with a willing smile, and a — 

" Morning sir, morning marm. I hope you enjoyin' you sleep, 
marm." 

" Where are we now, Abd-el-Atti ? " 

"Not much, marm; this is a place call him Hadji Kandeel. 
But we do very well ; I not to complain." 

" Do you think we shall have any wind to-day? " 

140 



INVENTING A NEW DIVINITY. 141 

" I d' know, be sure. The wind come from Lord. Not so ? " 

Hadji Kandeel is in truth only a scattered line of huts, but 
one lands here to visit the grottoes or rock-tombs of Tel el 
Amarna. All this country is gaping with tombs apparently; 
all the cliffs are cut into receptacles for the dead, all along the 
margin of the desert on each side are old necropolises and 
moslem cemeteries, in which generation after generation, for 
almost fabulous periods of time, has been deposited. Here 
behind Hadji Kandeel are remains of a once vast city built let us 
say sixteen hundred years before our era, by Amunoph IV., a 
wayward king of the eighteenth dynasty, and made the capital 
of Egypt. In the grottoes of Tel el Amarna were deposited 
this king and his court and favorites, and his immediate 
successors — all the splendor of them sealed up there and for- 
gotten. This king forsook the worship of the gods of Thebes, 
and set up that of a Semitic deity, Aten, a radiating disk, a 
sun with rays terminating in human hands. It was his mother 
who led him into this, and she was not an Egyptian; neither are 
the features of the persons sculptured in the grottoes Egyptian. 

Thus all along the stream of Egyptian history cross currents are 
coming in, alien sovereigns and foreign task-masters ; and great 
breaks appear, as if one full civilization had run its course of 
centuries, and decay had come, and then ruin, and then a new 
start and a fresh career. 

Early this morning, when we were close in to the west bank, 
I heard measured chanting, and saw a procession of men and 
women coming across the field. The men bore on a rude bier 
the body of a child. They came straight on to the bank, and then 
turned by the flank with military precision and marched up- 
stream to the place where a clumsy country ferry-boat had just 
landed. The chant of the men, as they walked, was deep-voiced 
and solemn, and I could hear in it frequently repeated the name 
of Mohammed. The women in straggling file followed, like a 
sort of ill-omened birds in black, and the noise they made, a 
kind of wail, was exactly like the cackle of wild geese. Indeed 
before I saw the procession I thought that some geese were 
flying overhead. 



142 ^ NICE COMPANION FOR SUNDA Y. 

The body was laid on the ground and four men kneeled upon 
the bank as if in prayer. The boat meantime was unloading, 
men, women and children scrambling over the sides into the 
shallow water, and the donkeys, urged with blows, jumping after 
them. When they were all out the funeral took possession of 
the boat, and was slowly wafted across, as dismal a going to a 
funeral as if this were the real river of death. When the 
mourners had landed we saw them walking under the palm-trees, 
to the distant burial-place in the desert, with a certain solemn 
dignity, and the chanting and wailing were borne to us very 
distinctly. 

It is nearly a dead calm all day, and our progress might be 
imperceptible to an eye naked, and certainly it must be so to the 
eyes of these natives which are full of flies. It grows warm, 
however, and is a summer temperature when we go ashore in the 
afternoon on a tour of exploration. We have for attendant, 
Ahmed, who carries a big stick as a defence against dogs. Ahmed 
does not differ much in appearance from a wild barbarian, his 
lack of a complete set of front teeth alone preventing him from 
looking fierce. A towel is twisted about his head, feet and legs 
are bare, and he wears a blue cotton robe with full sleeves 
longer than his arms, gathered at the waist by a piece of 
rope, and falling only to the knees. A nice person to go walking 
with on the Holy Sabbath. 

The whole land is green with young wheat, but the soil is 
baked and cracked three or four inches deep, even close to the 
shore where the water has only receded two or three days ago. 
The land stretches for several miles, perfectly level and every 
foot green and smiling, back to the desert hills. Sprinkled over 
this expanse, which is only interrupted by ditches and slight 
dykes upon which the people walk from village to village, are 
frequent small groves of palms. Each grove is the nucleus of a 
little settlement, a half dozen sun-baked habitations, where 
people, donkeys, pigeons, and smaller sorts of animated nature 
live together in dirty amity. The general plan of building is to 
erect a circular wall of clay six or seven feet high, which dries, 
hardens, and cracks in the sun. This is the Oriental court. In- 



PHILOSOPHICAL PEOPLE. I43 

side this and built against the wall is a low mud-hut with a 
wooden door, and perhaps here and there are two similar huts, or 
half a dozen, according to the size of the family. In these hovels 
the floor is of smooth earth, there is a low bedstead or some mat- 
ting laid in one corner, but scarcely any other furniture, except 
some earthen jars holding doora or dried fruit, and a few cooking 
utensils. A people who never sit, except on their heels, do not 
need chai-rs, and those who wear at once all the clothes they 
possess need no closets or wardrobes. I looked at first for a 
place where they could keep their " Sunday clothes" and " nice 
things," but this philosophical people do not have anything that 
is too good for daily use. It is nevertheless true that there is 
no hope of a people who do not have " Sunday clothes." 

The inhabitants did not, however, appear conscious of any 
such want. They were lounging about or squatting in the dust 
in picturesque idleness ; the children under twelve years often 
without clothes and not ashamed, and the women wearing no 
veils. The women are coming and going with the heavy water- 
jars, or sitting on the ground, sorting doora and preparing it for 
cooking ; not prepossessing certainly, in their black or dingy 
brown gowns and shawls of cotton. Children abound. In all 
the fields men are at work, picking up the ground with a rude 
hoe shaped like an adze. Tobacco plants have just been set out, 
and water-melons carefully shaded from the sun by little tents 
of rushes. These men are all Fellaheen, coarsely and scantily 
clad in brown cotton gowns, open at the breast. They are not 
bad figures, better than the women, but there is a hopeless 
acceptance of the portion of slaves in their bearing. 

We encountered a very different race further from the 
river, where we came upon an encampment of Bedaween, or 
desert Arabs, who hold themselves as much above the Fella- 
heen as the poor white trash used to consider itself above the 
negroes in our Southern States. They pretend to keep their 
blood pure by intermarrying only in desert tribes, and 
perhaps it is pure ; so, I suppose, the Gipsies are pure blood 
enough, but one would not like them for neighbors. These 
Bedaween, according to their wandering and predatory habit. 



144 COMPLIMENTARY SPEECHES. 

have dropped down here from the desert to feed their little 
flock of black sheep and give their lean donkeys a bite of 
grass. Their tents are merely strips of coarse brown cloth, 
probably camel's hair, like sacking, stretched horizontally 
over sticks driven into the sand, so as to form a cover from the 
sun and a protection from the north wind. Underneath them 
are heaps of rags, matting, old clothes, blankets, mingled 
with cooking-utensils and the nameless broken assortment 
that beggars usually lug about with them. Hens and lambs 
are at home there, and dogs, a small, tawny wolfish breeds 
abound. The Arabs are worthy of their dwellings, a dirty, 
thievish lot to look at, but, as I said, no doubt of pure blood, 
and having all the virtues for which these nomads have been 
celebrated since the time when Jacob judiciously increased 
his flock at the expense of Laban. 

A half-naked boy of twelve years escorts us to the bank of 
the canal near which the tents are pitched, and we are met 
by the sheykh of the tribe, a more venerable and courtly 
person than the rest of these pure-blood masqueraders in rags, 
but not a whit less dirty. The fellaheen had paid no attention 
to us; this sheykh looked upon himself as one of the proprie- 
tors of this world, and bound to extend the hospitalities of 
this portion of it to strangers. He received us with a certain 
formality. When two Moslems meet there is no end to their 
formal salutation and complimentary speeches, which may 
continue as long as their stock of religious expressions holds 
out. The usual first greeting is Es-selaa?n 'aleykoom, "peace be 
on you " ; to which the reply is 'Aleykootn es-saalam^ " on you 
be peace." It is said that persons of another religion, however, 
should never make use of this salutation to a Moslem, and 
that the latter should not and will not return it. But we 
were overflowing with charity and had no bigotry, and went 
through Egypt salaaming right and left, sometimes getting no 
reply and sometimes a return, to our " peace be on you," of 
Wa- aleykootn, " and on you." 

The salutations by gesture are as varied as those by speech. 
When Abd-el-Atti walked in Cairo with us, he constantly 



BED A WEEN A T THE CENTENNIAL. I45 

varied his gestures according to the rank of the people we 
met. To an inferior he tossed a free salaam; an equal he 
saluted by touching with his right hand in one rapid motion 
his breast, lips, and head; to a superior he made the same 
motion except that his hand first made a dip down to his 
knees; and when he met a person of high rank the hand 
scooped down to the ground before it passed up to the head. 

I flung a cheerful salaam at the sheykh and gave him the 
Oriental salute, which he returned. We then shook hands, 
and the sheykh kissed his after touching mine, a token of 
friendship which I didn't know enough to imitate, not having 
been brought up to kiss my own hand. 

" Anglais or Francais ? " asked the sheykh. 

" No," I said, " Americans." 

" Ah," he ejaculated, throwing back his head with an 
aspiration of relief, "Melicans; tyeb (good)." 

A ring of inquisitive Arabs gathered about us and were 
specially interested in studying the features and costume of 
one of our party ; the women standing further off and remain- 
ing closely veiled kept their eyes fixed on her. The sheykh 
invited us to sit and have coffee, but the surroundings were 
not tempting to the appetite and we parted with profuse 
salutations. I had it in mind to invite him to our American 
centennial ; I should like to set him off against some of our 
dirty red brethren of the prairies. I thought that if I could 
transport these Bedaween, tents, children, lank, veiled women, 
donkeys, and all to the centennial grounds they would add a 
most interesting (if unpleasant) feature. But, then, I reflected, 
what is a centennial to this Bedawee whose ancestors were 
as highly civilized as he is when ours were wading about 
the fens with the Angles or burrowing in German forests. 
Besides, the Bedawee would be at a disadvantage when 
away from the desert, or the bank of this Nile whose un- 
ceasing flow symbolizes his tribal longevity. 

As we walk along through the lush -fields which the 
despised Fellaheen are irritating into a fair yield of food, we 
are perplexed with the query, what is the use of the Bedaween 
10 



146 KEEPING SUNDA Y ON THE NILE. 

in this world? They produce nothing. To be sure they 
occupy a portion of the earth that no one else would inhabit; 
they dwell on the desert. But there is no need of any one 
dwelling on the desert, especially as they have to come from 
it to levy contributions on industrious folds in order to live. 
At this stage of the inquiry, the philosopher asks, what is the 
use of any one living.? 

As no one could answer this, we waded the water where it 
was shallow and crossed to a long island, such as the Nile 
frequently leaves in its sprawling course. This island was 
green from end to end, and inhabited more thickly than the 
main-land. We attracted a good deal of attention from the 
mud -villages, and much anxiety was shown lest we should 
walk across the wheat-fields. We expected that the dahabeeh 
would come on and take us off, but its streamer did not 
advance, and we were obliged to rewade the shallow channel 
and walk back to the starting -place. There was a Sunday 
calm in the scene. At the rosy sunset the broad river shone 
like a mirror and the air was soft as June. How strong 
is habit. Work was going on as usual, and there could have 
been no consent of sky, earth, and people, to keep Sunday, yet 
there seemed to be the Sunday spell upon the landscape. I 
suspect that people here have got into the way of keeping all 
the days. The most striking way in which an American can 
keep Sunday on the Nile is by not going gunning, not even 
taking a "flyer" at a hawk from the deck of the dahabeeh. 
There is a chance for a tract on this subject. 

Let no one get the impression that we are idling away our 
time, because we are on Monday morning exactly where we 
were on Sunday morning. We have concluded to " keep " 
another day. There is not a breath of wind to scatter the haze, 
thermometer has gone down, and the sun's rays are feeble. 
This is not our fault, and I will not conceal the adverse 
circumstances in order to give you a false impression of the 
Nile. 

We are moored against the bank. The dragoman has gone 
on shore to shoot pigeons and buy vegetables. Our turkeys, 



THE LONG-LEGGED CRANES. 147 

which live in cages on the stern-deck, have gone ashore and are 
strutting up and down the sand ; their gobble is a home sound 
and recalls New England. Women, as usual, singly and in 
groups, come to the river to fill their heavy water-jars. There 
is a row of men and boys on the edge of the bank. Behind are 
two camels yoked wide apart drawing a plow. Our crew chaff 
the shore people. The cook says to a girl, 

"You would make me a good wife; we will take you along." 

Men, squatting on the bank say, " Take her along, she is of no 
use." 

Girl retorts, " You are not of more use than animals, you sit 
idle all day, while I bring water and grind the corn," 

One is glad to see this assertion of the rights of women in 
this region where nobody has any rights ; and if we had a tract 
we would leave it with her. Some good might be done by 
travelers if they would distribute biscuit along the Nile, stamped 
in Arabic with the words, " Man ought to do half the work," or, 
" Sisters rise ! " 

In the afternoon we explore a large extent of country, my 
companion carrying a shot-gun for doves. These doves are in 
fact wild pigeons, a small and beautiful pearly-grey bird. They 
live on the tops of the houses in nests formed for them by the 
insertion of tiles or earthen pots in the mud-walls. Many 
houses have an upper story of this sort on purpose for the 
doves ; and a collection of mere mud-cabins so ornamented is 
a picturesque sight, under a palm-grove. Great flocks of these 
birds are flying about, and the shooting is permitted, away from 
the houses. 

We make efforts to get near the wild geese and the cranes, 
great numbers of which are sunning themselves on the sand- 
banks, but these birds know exactly the range of a gun, and fly 
at the right moment. A row of cranes will sometimes trifle with 
our feelings. The one nearest will let us approach almost 
within range before he lifts his huge wings and sails over the 
river, the next one will wait for us to come a few steps further 
before he flies, and so on until the sand-spit is deserted of 
these long-legged useless birds. Hawks are flying about the 



148 BALMY NIGHTS IN WINTER. 



shore and great greyish crows, or ravens, come over the fields 
and light on the margin of sand — a most gentlemanly looking 
bird, who is under a queer necessity of giving one hop before he 
can raise himself in flight. Small birds, like sand-pipers, are 
flitting about the bank. The most beautiful creature, however, 
is a brown bird, his wing marked with white, long bill, head 
erect and adorned with a high tuft, as elegant as the blue-jay; 
the natives call it the crocodile's guide. 

We cross vast fields of wheat and of beans, the Arab "fool," 
which are sown broadcast, interspersed now and then with a 
melon-patch. Villages, such as they are, are frequent ; one of 
them has a mosque, the only one we have seen recently. The 
water for ablution is outside, in a brick tank sunk in the ground, 
A row of men are sitting on their heels in front of the mosque, 
smoking ; some of them in white gowns, and fine-looking men. 
I hope there is some saving merit in this universal act of sitting 
on the heels, the soles of the feet flat on the ground ; it is not 
an easy thing for a Christian to do, as he will find out by trying. 
Toward night a steamboat flying the star and crescent of 
Egypt, with passengers on board, some of " Cook's personally 
conducted," goes thundering down stream, filling the air with 
smoke and frightening the geese, who fly before it in vast clouds. 
I didn't suppose there. were so many geese in the world. 

Truth requires it to be said that on Tuesday morning the 
dahabeeh holds about the position it reached on Sunday morn- 
ing; we begin to think we are doing well not to lose anything 
in this rapid current. The day is warm and cloudy, the wind is 
from the east and then from the south-east, exactly the direction 
we must go. It is in fact a sirocco, and fills one with languor,, 
which is better than being frost-bitten at home. The evening, 
with the cabin windows all open, is like one of those soft nights 
which come at the close of sultry northern days, in which there 
is a dewy freshness. This is the sort of winter that we ought 
to cultivate. 

During the day we attempt tracking two or three times, but 
with little success; the wind is so strong that the boat is contin- 
ually blown ashore. Tracking is not very hard for the passengers. 



ARISTOCRA TIC INDIFFERENCE. 149 

and gives them an opportunity to study the bank and the people 
on it close at hand. A long cable fastened on the forward deck 
is carried ashore, and to the far end ten or twelve sailors attach 
themselves at intervals by short ropes which press across the 
breast. Ceaning in a slant line away from the river, they walk 
at a snail's pace, a file of parti-colored raiment and glistening 
legs; occasionally bursting into a snatch of a song, they slowly 
pull the bark along. But obstructions to progress are many. 
A spit of sand will project itself, followed by deep water, through 
which the men will have to wade in order to bring the boat 
round ; occasionally the rope must be passed round trees which 
■overhang the caving bank ; and often freight-boats, tied to the 
shore, must be passed. The leisure with which the line is 
carried outside another boat is amusing even in this land of 
deliberation. The groups on these boats sit impassive and look 
at us with a kind of curiosity that has none of our eagerness in 
it. The well-bred indifferent " stare " of these people, which is 
not exactly brazen and yet has no element of emotion in it, 
would make the fortune of a young fellow in a London season. 
The Nubian boatmen who are tracking the freight-dahabeeh 
appear to have left their clothes in Cairo ; they flop in and out 
of the water, they haul the rope along the bank, without con- 
sciousness apparently that any spectators are within miles ; and 
the shore-life goes on all the same, men sit on the banks, women 
come constantly to fill their jars, these crews stripped to their 
toil excite no more attention than the occasional fish jumping 
out of the Nile. The habit seems to be general of minding one's 
-own business. 

At early morning another funeral crossed the river to a desolate 
burial-place in the sand, the women wailing the whole distance 
of the march; and the noise was more than before like the clang 
of wild geese. These women have inherited the Oriental art of 
"lifting up the voice," and it adds not a little to the weirdness 
of this ululation and screeching to think that for thousands of 
years the dead have been buried along this valley with exactly 
the same feminine tenderness. 

These women wear black; all the countrywomen we have 



150 THE HOME OF THE CROCODILE. 



seen are dressed in sombre gowns and shawls of black or deep 
blue-black ; none of them have a speck of color in their raiment, 
not a bit of ribbon nor a bright kerchief, nor any relief to the 
dullness of their apparel. And yet they need not fear to make 
themselves too attractive. The men have all the colors that are 
worn ; though the Fellaheen as a rule wear brownish garments, 
blue and white are not uncommon, and a white turban or a red 
fez or a silk belt about the waist gives variety and agreeable 
relief to the costumes. In this these people imitate that nature 
which we affect to admire, but outrage constantly. They imitate 
the birds. The male birds have all the gay plumage; the 
feathers of the females are sober and quiet, as befits their domestic 
position. And it must be admitted that men need the aid of 
gay dress more than women. 

The next morning when the sun shows over the eastern desert, 
the sailors are tracking, hauling the boat slowly along an ox-bow 
in the river, until at length the sail can catch the light west 
wind which sprang up with the dawn. When we feel that, 
the men scramble aboard, and the dahabeeh, like a duck that 
has been loitering in an eddy for days, becomes instinct with 
life and flies away to the cliffs opposite, the bluffs called Gebel 
Aboofayda, part of the Mokattam range that here rises pre- 
cipitously from the river and overhangs it for ten or twelve 
miles. I think these limestone ledges are two or three hundred 
feet high. The face is scarred by the slow wearing of ages, and 
worn into holes and caves innumerable. Immense numbers of 
cranes are perched on the narrow ledges of the cliff, and flocks 
of them are circling in front of it, apparently having nests there. 
As numerous also as swallows in a sand-bank is a species of 
duck called the diver; they float in troops on the stream, or 
wheel about the roosting cranes. 

This is a spot famed for its sudden gusts of wind which 
sometimes flop over the brink and overturn boats. It also is the 
resort of the crocodile, which seldom if ever comes lower down 
the Nile now. But the crocodile is evidently shy of exhib- 
ftino- himself, and we scan the patches of sand at the foot 
of the rocks with our glasses for a long time in vain. The 



A HERMIT'S CA VE. 15X 

animal dislikes the puffing, swashing steamboats, and the rifle- 
balls that passing travelers pester him with. At last we see a 
scaly log six or eight feet long close to the water under the 
rock. By the aid of the glass it turns out to be a crocodile. 
He is asleep, and too far off to notice at all the volley of shot 
with which we salute him. It is a great thing to say you saw a 
crocodile. It isn't much to see one. 

And yet the scaly beast is an interesting and appropriate 
feature in such a landscape, and the expectation of seeing a 
crocodile adds to your enjoyment. On our left are these 
impressive cliffs; on the right is a level island. Half-naked 
boys and girls are tending small flocks of black sheep on it. 
Abd-el-Atti raises his gun as if he would shoot the children 
and cries out to them, " lift up your arm," words that the 
crocodile hunter uses when he is near enough to fire, and wants 
to attract the attention of the beast so that it will raise its 
fore-paw to move off, and give the sportsman a chance at the 
vulnerable spot. The children understand the allusion and run 
laughing away. 

Groups of people are squatting on the ground, doing nothing, 
waiting for nothing, expecting nothing ; buffaloes and cattle are 
feeding on the thin grass, and camels are kneeling near in 
stately indifference; women in blue-black robes come — the 
everlasting sight — to draw water. The whole passes in a dumb 
show. The hot sun bathes all. 

We pass next the late residence of a hermit, a Moslem 
"welee" or holy man. On a broad ledge of the cliff, some 
thirty feet above the water, is a hut built of stone and plaster 
and whitewashed, about twelve feet high, the roof rounded like 
an Esquimau snow-hut and with a knob at the top. Here the 
good man lived, isolated from the world, fed by the charity of 
passers-by, and meditating on his own holiness. Below him, 
out of the rock, with apparently no better means of support than 
he had, grows an acacia-tree, now in yellow blossoms. Perhaps 
the saint chewed the gum-arabic that oozed from it. Just 
above, on the river, is a slight strip of soil, where he used to 
raise a few cucumbers and other cooling vegetables. The farm, 



-[52 CROCODILE-MUMMIES. 

which is no larger than two bed blankets, is deserted now. The 
saint died, and is buried in his house, in a hole excavated in 
the rock, so that his condition is little changed, his house being 
his tomb, and the Nile still soothing his slumber. 

But if it is easy to turn a house into a tomb it is still easier 
to turn a tomb into a house. Here are two square-cut tombs in 
the rock, of which a family has taken possession, the original 
occupants probably having moved out hundreds of years ago. 
Smoke is issuing from one of them, and a sorry-looking woman 
is pulling dead grass among the rocks for fuel. There seems to 
be no inducement for any one to live in this barren spot, but 
probably rent is low. A little girl seven or eight years old 
comes down and walks along the bank, keeping up with the 
boat, incited of course by the universal expectation of back- 
sheesh. She has on a head-veil, covering the back of the head 
and neck and a single shirt of brown rags hanging in strings. 
I throw her an apple, a fruit she has probably never seen, 
which she picks up and carries until she joined is by an elder 
sister, to whom she shows it. Neither seems to know what it is. 
The elder smells it, sticks her teeth into it, and then takes a 
bite. The little one tastes, and they eat it in alternate bites, 
growing more and more eager for fair bites as the process goes on. 

Near the southern end of the cliffs of Gebel Aboofayda are 
the crocodile-mummy pits which Mr. Prime explored ; caverns 
in which are stacked up mummied crocodiles and lizards by the 
thousands. We shall not go nearer to them. I dislike mum- 
mies; I loathe crocodiles; I have no fondness for pits. What 
could be more unpleasant than the three combined ! To crawl 
on one's stomach through crevices and hewn passages in the 
rock, in order to carry a torch into a stifling chamber, packed 
with mummies and cloths soaked in bitumen, is an exploit that 
we willingly leave to Egyptologists. If one takes a little pains, 
he can find enough unpleasant things above ground. 

It requires all our skill to work the boat round the bend 
above these cliffs; we are every minute about to go aground on 
a sand-bar, or jibe the sail, or turn about. Heaven only knows 
how we ever get on at all, with all the crew giving orders and 



THE BOA TMEN'S SONG. 153 

no one obeying. But by five o'clock we are at the large market- 
town of Manfaloot, which has half a dozen minarets and is 
sheltered by a magnificent palm-grove. You seem to be 
approaching an earthly paradise; and one can keep up the 
illusion if be does not go ashore. And yet this is a spot that 
ought to interest the traveler, for here Lot is said to have 
spent a portion of the years of his exile, after the accident to 
his wife. 

At sunset old Abo Arab comes limping along the bank 
with a tin pail, having succeeded at length in overtaking the 
boat; and in reply to the question, where he has been asleep 
all day, pulls out from his bosom nine small fish as a 
peace-offering. He was put off at sunrise to get milk for 
breakfast. "What a happy-go-lucky country it is. 

After sundown, the crew, who have worked hard all day, on 
and off, tacking, poling, and shifting sail, get their supper 
round an open fire on deck, take each some whiffs from the 
"hubble-bubble," and, as we sail out over the broad, smooth 
water, sing a rude and plaintive melody to the subdued 
thump of the darabooka. Towards dark, as we are about to 
tie up, the wind, which had failed, rises, and we voyage on, 
the waves rippling against the sides in a delicious lullaby. 
The air is soft, the moon is full and peeps out from the light 
clouds which obscure the sky and prevent dew. 

The dragoman asleep on the cabin deck, the reis crouched, 
attentive of the course, near him, part of the sailors grouped 
about the- bow in low chat, and part asleep in the shadow of 
the sail, we voyage along under the wide night, still to the 
south and warmer skies, and seem to be sailing through an 
enchanted land. 

Put not your trust in breezes. The morning finds us still a 
dozen miles from Asioot where we desire to celebrate Christ- 
mas; we just move with sails up, and the crew poling. The 
head-man chants a line or throws out a word, and the rest 
come in with a chorus, as they walk along, bending the 
^shoulder to the pole. The leader — the "shanty man" the 
English sailors call their leader, from the French chanter I 



154 FURLING SAIL. 



suppose — ejaculates a phrase, sometimes prolonging it, or 
dwelling on it with a variation, like "O! Mohammed!" or 
" O ! Howadji ! " or some scraps from a love-song, and the men 
strike in in chorus : " Ha Yalesah, ha Yalesah," a response that 
the boatmen have used for hundreds of years. 

We sail leisurely past a large mud -village dropped in a 
splendid grove of palms and acacias. The scene is very 
poetical before details are inspected, and the groves, we 
think, ought to be the home of refinement and luxury. Men 
are building a boat under the long arcade of trees, women 
are stooping with the eternal water-jars which do not appear 
to retain fluid any better than the sieves of the Danaides, and 
naked children run along the bank crying " Backsheesh, O 
Howadji." Our shot-gun brings down a pigeon-hawk close 
to the shore. A boy plunges in and gets it, handing it to us 
on deck from the bank, but not relinquishing his hold with 
one hand until he feels the half-piastre in the other. So early 
is distrust planted in the human breast. 

Getting away from this idyllic scene, which has not a single 
resemblance to any civilized town, we work our way up to 
El Hamra late in the afternoon. This is the landing-place 
for Asioot ; the city itself is a couple of miles inland, and 
could be reached by a canal at high water. We have come 
again into an active world, and there are evidences that this is 
a busy place. New boats are on the stocks, and there is a 
forge for making some sort of machinery. So much life has 
not been met with since we left Cairo. The furling our great 
sail is a fine sight as we round in to the bank, the sailors 
crawling out on the slender, hundred-feet-long yard, like 
monkeys, and drawing up the hanging slack with both feet 
and hands. 

It is long since we have seen so many or so gaily dressed 
people as are moving on shore ; a procession of camels passes 
along ; crowds of donkeys are pushed down to the boat by 
their noisy drivers ; old women come to sell eggs, and white 
grease that pretends to be butter, and one of them pulls some 
live pigeons from a bag. We lie at the mud-bank, and 



SEEING AND BEING SEEN. 



155 



classes of half-clad children, squatting in the sand, study us. 
Two other dahabeehs are moored near us, their passengers 
sitting under the awning and indolently observing the novel 
scene, book in hand, after the manner of Nile voyagers. 

These are the pictures constantly recurring on the river, 
only they are never the same in grouping or color, and they 
never weary one. It is wonderful, indeed, how satisfying the 
Nile is in itself and how little effort travelers make for the 
society of each other. Boats pass or meet and exchange 
salutes, but with little more effusion than if they were on the 
Thames. Nothing afloat is so much like a private house as a 
dahabeeh, and I should think, by what we hear, that sociability 
decreases on the Nile with increase of travel and luxury. 




CHAPTER XII. 



SPENDING CHRISTMAS ON THE NILE, 



PROBABLY this -present writer has the distinction of being 
the only one who has written about the Nile and has not 
invented a new way of spelling the name of the town whose 
many minarets and brown roofs are visible over the meadows. 

It is written Asioot, Asyoot, Asiiit, Ssout, Sioout, Osyoot, 
Osioot, O'Sioot, Siiit, Sioot, O'siout, Si-66t, Siout, Syouth, and so 
on, indefinitely. People take the liberty to spell names as they 
sound to them, and there is consequently a pleasing variety in 
the names of all places, persons, and things in Egypt; and. when 
we add to the many ways of spelling an Arabic word, the French 
the German, and the English translation or equivalent, you are in 
a hopeless jumble of nomenclature. The only course is to strike 
out boldly and spell everything as it seems good in your eyes, 
and differently in different moods. Even the name of the 
Prophet takes on half a dozen forms ; there are not only ninety- 
nine names of the atributes of God, but I presume there are 
ninety-nine ways of spelling each of them. 

This Asioot has always been a place of importance. It was 
of old called Lycopolis, its divinity being the wolf or the wolf- 
headed god; and in a rock-mountain behind the town were 
not only cut the tombs of the inhabitants, but there were deposi- 
ted the mummies of the sacred wolves. About these no one in" 
Asioot knows or cares much, to day. It is a city of twenty-five 
thousand people, with a good many thriving Copt Christians; 
the terminus, to day, of the railway, and the point of arrival and 
departure of the caravans to and from Darfoor — a desert march 

156 



CHRISTMAS ON THE NILE. 15^ 

of a month. Here are made the best clay pipe-bowls in 
Egypt, and a great variety of ornamented dishes and vases 
in clay, which the traveler buys and doesn't know what to do 
with. The artisans also work up elephants' tusks and ostrich 
feathers into a variety of " notions." 

Christmas day opens warm and with an air of festivity. Great 
palm-branches are planted along the bank and form an arbor 
over the gang-plank. The cabin is set with them, in gothic 
arches over windows and doors, with yellow oranges at the apex. 
The forward and saloon decks are completely embowered in 
palms, which also run up the masts and spars. The crew have 
entered with zeal into the decoration, and in the early morning 
transformed the boat into a floating bower of greenery ; the effect 
is Oriental, but it is difficult to believe that this is really Christmas 
day. The weather is not right, for one thing. It is singularly 
pleasant, in fact like summer. We miss the usual snow and ice 
and the hurtling of savage winds that bring suffering to the 
poor and make charity meritorious. Besides, the Moslems are 
celebrating the day for us and, I fear, regarding it simply as an 
occasion of backsheesh. The sailors are very quick to under- 
stand so much of our religion as is profitable to themselves. 

In such weather as this it would be possible for " shepherds 
to watch their flocks by night." 

Early in the day we have a visit from Wasef el Khyat, the 
American consul here for many years, a Copt and a native of 
Asioot, who speaks only Arabic ; he is accompanied by one 
of his sons, who was educated at the American college in 
Beyrout. So far does that excellent institution send its 
light; scattered rays to be sure, but it is from it and such 
schools that the East is getting the real impetus of civilization. 
I do not know what the consul at Asioot does for America, 
^but our flag is of great service to him, protecting his property 
from the exactions of his own government. Wasef is con- 
sequently very polite to all Americans, and while he sipped 
coffee and puffed cigars in our cabin he smiled unutterable 
things. This is the pleasantest kind of intercourse in a 
warm climate, where a puff" and an occasional smile will 
pass for profuse expressions of social enjoyment. 



158 OUR FIRST VISIT TO THE PASHA. 

His excellency Shakirr Pasha, the governor of this large 
and rich province, has sent word that he is about to put 
carriages and donkeys at our disposal, but this probably 
meant that the consul would do it ; and the consul has done 
it. The carriage awaits us on the bank. It is a high, paneled, 
venerable ark, that moves with trembling dignity; and we 
choose the donkeys as less pretentious and less liable to come 
to pieces. This is no doubt the only carriage between Cairo 
and Kartoom, and its appearance is regarded as an event. 

Our first visit is paid to the Pasha, who has been only a few 
days in his province, and has not yet transferred his harem 
from Cairo. We are received with distinguished ceremony, 
to the lively satisfaction of Abd-el-Atti, whose face beams 
like the morning, in bringing together such " distinguish " 
people as his friend the Pasha, and travelers in his charge. 
The Pasha is a courtly Turk, of most elegant manners, and 
the simplicity of high breeding, a man of the world and one 
of the ablest governors in Egypt. The room into which we 
are ushered, through a dirty alley and a mud-wall court is 
hardly in keeping with the social stilts on which we are all 
walking. In our own less favored land, it would answer very 
well for a shed or an out-house to store beans in, or for a 
"reception room" for sheep; a narrow oblong apartment, 
covered with a fiat roof of palm logs, with a couple of dirty 
little windows high up, the once whitewashed walls stained 
variously, the cheap divans soiled. 

The hospitality of this gorgeous salon was offered us with 
efiusion, and we sat down and exchanged compliments as if 
we had been in a palace. I am convinced that there is nothing 
like the Oriental imagination. An attendant (and the servants 
were in keeping with the premises) brought in fingans of 
coffee. The servant presents the cup in his right hand, 
holding the bottom of the silver receptacle in his thumb and 
finger; he takes it away empty with both hands, placing the 
left under and the right on top of it. These formalities are 
universal and all-important. Before taking it you ought to 
make the salutation, by touching breast, lips, and forehead, 



CON VERSA TION UNDER DIFFICUL TIES. 1 5 9 

with the right hand — an acknowledgment not to the servant 
but to the master. Cigars are then handed round, for it is 
getting to be considered on the Nile that cigars are more 
" swell " than pipes; more's the pity. 

The exchange of compliments meantime went on, and on 
the part of the Pasha with a fineness, adroitness, and readiness 
that showed the practice of a lifetime in social fence. He 
surpassed our most daring invention with a smiling ease, and 
topped all our extravagances with an art that made our poor 
efforts appear clumsy. And what the effect would have been 
if we could have understood the flowery Arabic I can only 
guess; nor can we ever know how many flowers of his own 
the dragoman cast in. 

** His excellency say that he feel the honor of your visit." 

" Say to his excellency that although we are only spending 
one day in his beautiful capital, we could not forego the 
pleasure of paying our respects to his excellency." This 
sentence is built by the critic, and strikes us all favorably. 

"His excellency himself not been here many days, and 
sorry he not know you coming, to make some preparations to 
receive you." 

"Thank his excellency for the palms that decorate our 
boat." 

"They are nothing, nothing, he say not mention it; the 
dahabeeh look very different now if the Nile last summer had 
not wash away all his flower-garden. His excellency say, how 
you enjoyed your voyage? " 

" It has been very pleasant ; only for a day or two we have 
wanted wind." 

" Your misfortune, his excellency say, his pleasure ; it give 
him the opportunity of your society. But he say if you want 
wind he sorry no wind ; it cause him to suffer that you not 
come here sooner." 

" Will his excellency dine with us to-day } " 

" He say he think it too much honor." 

"Assure his excellency that we feel that the honor is 
conferred by him." 



160 THE GHA W A ZEES A T HOME. 

And he consents to come. After we have taken our leave,, 
the invitation is extended to the consul, who is riding with us. 

The way to the town is along a winding, shabby embank- 
ment, raised above high water, and shaded with sycamore- 
trees. It is lively with people on foot and on donkeys, in 
more colored and richer dress than that worn by country- 
people; the fields are green, the clover is springing luxu- 
riantly, and spite of the wrecks of unburned-brick houses, left 
gaping by the last flood, and spite of the general untidiness 
of everything, the ride is enjoyable. I don't know why it is 
that an irrigated country never is pleasing on close inspection, 
neither is an irrigated garden. Both need to be seen from a 
little distance, which conceals the rawness of the alternately 
dry and soaked soil, the frequent thinness of vegetation, the 
unkempt swampy appearance of the lowest levels, and the 
painful whiteness of paths never wet and the dustiness of 
trees unwashed by rain. There is no Egyptian landscape 
or village that is neat, on near inspection. 

Asioot has a better entrance than most towns, through an 
old gateway into the square (which is the court of the palace) ; 
and the town has extensive bazaars and some large dwellings. 
But as we ride through it, we are always hemmed in by mud- 
walls, twisting through narrow alleys, encountering dirt and 
poverty at every step. We pass through the quarter of the 
Ghawazees, who, since their banishment from Cairo, form 
little colonies in all the large Nile towns. There are the 
dancing-women whom travelers are so desirous of seeing; the 
finest-looking women and the most abandoned courtesans^ 
says Mr. Lane, in Egypt. In showy dresses of bright yellow 
and red, adorned with a profusion of silver-gilt necklaces, 
earrings, and bracelets, they sit at the doors of their hovels in 
idle expectation. If these happen to be the finest-looking 
women in Egypt, the others are wise in keeping their veils on. 

Outside the town we find a very pretty cemetery of the 
Egyptian style, staring white tombs, each dead person resting 
under his own private little stucco oven. Near it is encamped 
a caravan just in from Darfoor, bringing cinnamon, gum- 



SPECIMENS OF ANCIENT SCULPTURE. \^\ 

arabic, tusks, and ostrich feathers. The camels are worn with 
the journey ; their drivers have a fierce and free air in striking 
contrast with the bearing of the fellaheen. Their noses are 
straight, their black hair is long and shaggy, their garment is 
a single piece of coarse brown cloth ; they have the wildness 
of the desert. 

The soft limestone ledge back of the town is honeycombed 
with grottoes and tombs ; rising in tiers from the bottom to 
the top. Some of them have merely square-cut entrances into 
a chamber of moderate size, in some part of which, or in a 
passage beyond, is a pit cut ten or twenty feet deep in the 
rock, like a grave, for the mummy. One of them has a 
magnificent entrance through a doorway over thirty feet 
high and fifteen deep; upon the jambs are gigantic figures cut 
in the rock. Some of the chambers are vast and were once 
pillared^ and may have served for dwellings. These exca- 
vations are very old. The hieroglyphics and figures on the 
walls are not in relief on the stone, but cut in at the outer 
edge and left in a gradual swell in the center — an intaglio 
relievato. The drawing is generally spirited, and the figures 
show knowledge of form and artistic skill. It is wonderful 
that such purely conventional figures, the head almost always 
in profile and the shoulders square to the front, can be so 
expressive. On one wall is a body of infantry marching, 
with the long pointed shields mentioned by Xenophon in 
describing Egyptian troops. Everywhere are birds, gracefully 
drawn and true to species, and upon some of them the blue 
color is fresh. A ceiling of one grotto is wrought in orna- 
mental squares — a " Greek pattern," executed long before the 
time of the Greeks. Here we find two figures with the full 
face turned towards us, instead of the usual profile. 

These tombs have served for a variety of purposes. As 
long as the original occupants rested here, no doubt their 
friends came and feasted and were mournfully merry in these 
sightly chambers overlooking the Nile. Long after they 
were turned out. Christian hermits nested in them, during 
that extraordinary period of superstition when riien thought 
11 



162 TWISTS AND TURNS OF THE RIVER. 

they could best secure their salvation by living like wild 
beasts in the deserts of Africa. Here one John of Lycopolis 
had his den, in which he stayed fifty years, without ever 
opening the door or seeing the face of a woman. At least, he 
enjoyed that reputation. Later, persecuted Christians dwelt 
in these tombs, and after them have come wanderers, and 
jackals, and houseless Arabs. I think I should rather live 
here than in Asioot; the tombs are cleaner and better built 
than the houses of the town, and there is good air here and 
no danger of floods. 

When we are on the top of the bluff, the desert in broken 
ridges is behind us. The view is one of the best of the usual 
views from hills near the Nile, the elements of which are 
similar; the spectator has Egypt in all its variety at his feet. 
The valley here is broad, and we look a long distance up and 
down the river. The Nile twists and turns in its bed like one 
of the chimerical serpents sculptured in the chambers of the 
dead; canals wander from it through the plain; and groves 
of palms and lines of sycamores contrast their green with that 
of the fields. All this level expanse is now covered with 
wheat, barley and thick clover, and the green has a vividness 
that we have never seen in vegetation before. This owes 
somewhat to the brown contrast near at hand and something 
maybe to the atmosphere, but I think the growing grain has 
a lustre unknown to other lands. This smiling picture is 
•enclosed by the savage frame of the desert, gaunt ridges of 
rocky hills, drifts of stones, and yellow sand that sends its 
hot tongues in long darts into the plain. At the foot of the 
mountain lies Asioot brown as the mud of the Nile, a city 
built of sun-dried bricks, but presenting a singular and not 
unpleasing appearance on account of the dozen white stone 
minarets, some of them worked like lace, which spring out of it. 

The consul's home is one of the best in the city, but outside 
it shows only a mud-wall like the meanest. Within is a 
paved court, and offices about it ; the rooms above are large, 
many-windowed, darkened with blinds, and not unlike those 
of a plain house in America. The furniture is European 



THE PASHA '5 CHRISTMAS DINNER, 163 

mainly, and ugly, and of course out of place in Africa. We 
see only the male members of the family. Confectionery and 
coffee are served and some champagne, that must have been 
made by the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company ; 
their champagne is well known in the Levant, and there is no 
known decoction that is like it. In my judgment, if it is 
proposed to introduce Christianity and that kind of wine into 
Egypt, the country would better be left as it is. 

During our call the consul presents us fly-whisks with ivory 
handles, and gives the ladies beautiful fans of ostrich feathers 
mounted in ivory. These presents may have been due to a 
broad hint from the Pasha, who said to the consul at our 
interview in the morning : — 

" I should not like to have these distinguished strangers go 
away without some remembrance of Asioot. I have not been 
here long ; what is there to get for them "> " 

" O, your excellency, I will attend to that," said the consul. 

In the evening, with the dahabeeh beautifully decorated and 
hung with colored lanterns, upon the deck, which, shut in 
with canvas and spread with Turkish rugs, was a fine 
reception-room, we awaited our guests, as if we had been 
accustomed to this sort of thing in America from our infancy, 
and as if we usually celebrated Christmas outdoors, fans in 
hand, with fire-works. A stand for the exhibition of fire- 
works had been erected on shore. The Pasha was received 
as he stepped on board, with three rockets, (that being, I 
suppose, the number of his official "tails,") which flew up 
into the sky and scattered their bursting bombs of color amid 
the stars, announcing to the English dahabeehs, the two steam- 
boats and the town of Asioot, that the governor of the 
richest province in Egypt was about to eat his dinner. 

The dinner was one of those perfections that one likes to speak 
of only in confidential moments to dear friends. It wanted 
nothing either in number of courses or in variety, in meats, in 
confections, in pyramids of gorgeous construction, in fruits and 
flowers. .There was something touching about the lamb roasted 
whole, reclining his head on his own shoulder. There was 



IQ^ THE KHEDIVE'S FIRE-WORKS. 

something tender about the turkey. There was a terrible 
moment when the plum-pudding was borne in on fire, as if it 
had been a present from the devil himself. The Pasha regarded 
it with distrust, and declined, like a wise man, to eat flame. I 
fear that the English have fairly introduced this dreadful dish 
into the Orient, and that the natives have come to think that all 
foreigners are Molochs who can best be pleased by offering up 
to them its indigestible ball set on fire of H. It is a fearful 
spectacle to see this heathen people offering this incense to a 
foreign idol, in the subserviency which will sacrifice even religion 
to backsheesh. 

The conversation during dinner is mostly an exchange of 
compliments, in the art of which the Pasha is a master, display- 
ing in it a wit, a variety of resource and a courtliness that make 
the game a very entertaining one. The Arabic language gives 
full play to this sort of social espie'glerie, and lends a delicacy to 
encounters of compliment which the English language does not 
admit. 

Coffee and pipes are served on deck, and the fire-works begin 
to tear and astonish the night. The Khedive certainly employs 
very good pyrotechnists, and the display by Abd-el-Atti and 
his equally excited helpers, although simple is brilliant. The 
intense delight that the soaring and bursting of a rocket give to 
Abd-el-Atti is expressed in unconscious and unrestrained de- 
monstration. He might be himself in flames but he would watch 
the flight of the rushing stream of fire, jumping up and down 
in his anxiety for it to burst : — 

" There ! there ! that's-a he, hooray ! " 

Every time one bursts, scattering its colored stars, the crew^ 
led by the dragoman, cheer, 

"Heep, heep, hooray! heep, heep, hooray!" 

A whirligig spins upon the river, spouting balls of fire, and 
the crew come in with a " Heep, heep, hooray 1 heep, heep, 
hooray ! " 

The steamer, which has a Belgian prince on board, illuminates, 
and salutes with shot-guns. In the midst of a fusillade of 
rockets and Roman candles, the crew develope a new accom- 



CHRISTMAS EVENING ON THE NILE. 



165 



plishraent. Drilled by the indomitable master of ceremonies, 
they attempt the first line of that distinctively American melody, 

"We won't go home till morning." 

They really catch the air, and make a bubble, bubble of sounds, 
like automata, that somewhat resembles the words. Probably 
they think that it is our national anthem, or perhaps a Christ- 
mas hymru No doubt, "won't-go-home-till-morning " sort of 
Americans have been up the river before us. 

The show is not over when the Pasha pleads an engagement 
to take a cup of tea with the Belgian prince, and asks permission 
to retire. He expresses his anguish at leaving us, and he will 
not depart if we say "no." Of course, our anguish in letting 
the Pasha go exceeds his suffering in going, but we sacrifice 
ourselves to the demand of his station, and permit him to depart. 
At the foot of the cabin stairs he begs us to go no further, 
insisting that we do him too much honor to come so far. 

The soft night grows more brilliant. Abd-el-Atti and his 
minions are still blazing away. The consul declares that Asioot 
in all his life has never experienced a night like this. We 
express ourselves as humbly thankful in being the instruments of 
giving Asioot (which is asleep there two miles off) such an 
"eye-opener." (This remark has a finer sound when translated 
into Arabic.) 

The spectacle closes by a voyage out upon the swift river in 
the sandal. We take Roman candles, blue, red, and green 
lights and floaters which Abd-el-Atti lets off, while the crew 
hoarsely roar, "We won't go home till morning," and mingle 
" Heep, heep, hooray," with " Ha Yalesah, ha Yalesah." 

The long range of lights on the steamers, the flashing lines 
and pyramids of colors on our own dahabeeh, the soft June-like 
night, the moon coming up in fleecy clouds, the broad Nile 
sparkling under so many fires, kindled on earth and in the sky, 
made a scene unique, and as beautiful as any that the Arabian 
Nights suggest. 

To end all, there was a hubbub on shore among the crew, 
caused by one of them who was crazy with hasheesh, and threat- 



166 



■'A GLORIOUS VICTORY." 



ened to murder the reis and dragoman, if he was not permitted 
to go on board. It could be demonstrated that he was less 
likely to slay them if he did not come on board, and he was 
therefore sent to the governor's lock-up, with a fair prospect of 
going into the Khedive's army. We left him behind, and about 
one o'clock in the morning stole away up the river with a gentle 
and growing breeze. 

Net result of pleasure: — one man in jail, and Abd-el-Atti's 
wrist so seriously burned by the fire-works, that he has no use 
of his arm for weeks. But, '" twas a glorious victory." For a 
Christmas, however, it was a little too much like the Fourth of 
July. 




CHAPTER XIII. 



SIGHTS AND SCENES ON THE RIVER. 



AS WE sail down into the heart of Egypt and into the 
remote past, living in fact, by books and by eye-sight, in 
eras so far-reaching that centuries count only as years in 
them, the word " ancient " gets a new signification. We pass 
every day ruins, ruins of the Old Empire, of the Middle Empire, 
of the Ptolomies, of the Greeks, of the Romans, of the Christians, 
of the Saracens ; but nothing seems ancient to us any longer 
except the remains of Old Egypt. 

We have come to have a singular contempt for anything so 
modern as the work of the Greeks, or Romans. Ruins pointed 
out on shore as Roman, do not interest us enough to force us to 
raise the field-glass. Small antiquities that are of the Roman 
period are not considered worth examination. The natives 
have a depreciatory shrug when they say of an idol or a brick- 
wall, " Roman ! " 

The Greeks and the Romans are moderns like ourselves. 
They are as broadly separated in the spirit of their life and 
culture from those ancients as we are ; we can understand them ; 
it is impossible for us to enter into the habits of thought and 
of life of the early Pharaonic times. When the variation of two 
thousand years in the assignment of a dynasty seems to us a 
trifle, the two thousand years that divide us and the Romans 
shrink into no importance. 

In future ages the career of the United States and of Rome 
will be reckoned in the same era ; and children will be taught 
the story of George Washington suckled by the wolf, and 

167 



168 A VISIT FROM A SHABB V SHE YKH. 

Romulus cutting the cherry-tree with his little hatchet. We 
must have distance in order to put things in their proper 
relations. In America, what have we that will endure a thousand 
years? Even George Washington's hatchet may be forgotten 
sooner than the fiabellum of Pharaoh. 

The day after Christmas we are going with a stiff wind, so 
fresh that we can carry only the forward sail. The sky is 
cloudy and stormy-looking. It is in fact as disagreeable and as 
sour a fall day as you can find anywhere. We keep the cabin, 
except for a time in the afternoon, when it is comfortable sitting 
on deck in an overcoat. We fly by Abooteeg ; Raaineh a more 
picturesque village, the top of every house being a pigeon-tower ; 
Gow, with its remnants of old Antseopolis — it was in the river 
here that Horus defeated Typhon in a great battle, as, thank 
God ! he is always doing in this flourishing world, with a good 
chance of killing him outright some day, when Typhon will no 
more take the shape of crocodile or other form of evil, war, or 
paper currency ; Tahtah, conspicuous by its vast mounds of an 
ancient city; and Gebel Sheykh Hereedee, near the high clifls 
of which we run, impressed by the grey and frown^g crags. 

As we are passing these rocks a small boat dashes out to our 
side, with a sail in tatters and the mast carrying a curiously 
embroidered flag, the like of which is in no signal-book. In the 
stern of this fantastic craft sits a young and very shabbily clad 
Sheykh, and demands backsheesh, as if he had aright to demand 
toll of all who pass his dominions. This right our reis acknow- 
ledges and tosses him some paras done up in a rag. I am sure I 
like this sort of custom-house better than some I have seen. 

We go on in the night past Sooliag, the capital of the province 
ofGirgeh; and by other villages and spots of historic interest, 
where the visitor will find only some heaps of stones and rubbish 
to satisfy a curiosity raised by reading of their former importance ; 
by the White Monastery and the Red Convent; and, coming 
round a bend, as we always are coming round a bend, and 
bringing the wind ahead, the crew probably asleep ; we ignomin- 
iously run into the bank, and finally come to anchor in mid- 
stream. ' 



NIGHT BENE A TH THE STARS OF EGYPT. 169 

As if to crowd all weathers into twenty-four hours, it clears off 
■cold in the night ; and in the morning when we are opposite the 
the pretty town of Ekhmeem, a temperature of 51*^ makes it rather 
fresh for the men who line the banks working the shadoofs, with 
no covering but breech-cloths. The people here, when it is cold, 
bundle up about the head and shoulders with thick wraps, and 
leave the feet and legs bare. The natives are huddled in 
clusters on the bank, out of the shade of the houses, in order to 
get the warmth of the sun ; near one group a couple of dis- 
contented camels kneel ; and the naked boy, making no pretence 
of a superfluous wardrobe by hanging his shirt on a bush while 
he goes to bed, is holding it up to dry. 

We skim along in almost a 'gale the whole day, passing, in the 
afternoon, an American dahabeeh tied up, repairing a broken 
yard, and giving Bellianeh the go-by as if it were of no impor- 
tance. And yet this is the landing for the great Abydus, a city 
-once second only to Thebes, the burial-place of Osiris himself, 
and still marked by one of the finest temples in Egypt. But our 
business now is navigation, and we improve the night as well as 
the day ; much against the grain of the crew. There is always 
more or less noise and row in a night-sail, going aground, 
•splashing, and boosting in the water to get off, shouting and 
-chorusing and tramping on deck, and when the thermometer is 
as low as 52*^ these night-baths are not very welcome when 
followed by exposure to keen wind, in a cotton shirt. And with 
the dragoman in bed, used up like one of his burnt-out rockets, 
able only to grumble at " dese fellow care for nothing but smoke 
hasheesh," the crew are not very subordinate. They are liable 
to go to sleep and let us run aground, or they are liable to run 
aground in order that they may go to sleep. They seem to try 
both ways alternately. 

But moving or stranded, the night is brillant all the same ; the 
night-skies are the more lustrous the farther we go from the 
moisture of Lov/er Egypt, and the stars scintillate with splendor, 
and flash deep colors like diamonds in sunlight. Late, the moon 
rises over the mountains under which we are sailing, and the 
♦effect is magically lovely. We are approaching Farshoot. 



170 A VISIT FROM THE BE V. 

Farshoot is a market-town and has a large sugar-factory, the 
first set up in Egypt, built by an uncle of the Khedive. It was 
the seat of power of the Howara tribe of Arabs, and famous for 
its breed of Howara horses and dogs, the latter bigger and fiercer 
than the little wolfish curs with which Egypt swarms. It is much 
like other Egyptian towns now, except that its inhabitants, like 
its dogs, are a little wilder and more ragged than the fellaheen 
below. This whole district of Haniram is exceedingly fertile 
and bursting with a tropical vegetation. 

The Turkish governor pays a formal visit and we enjoy one of 
those silent and impressive interviews over chibooks and coffee ; 
in which nothing is said that one can regret. We finally make 
the governor a complimentary speech, which Hoseyn, who only 
knows a little table-English, pretends to translate. The Bey 
replies, talking very rapidly for two or three minutes. When we 
asked Hoseyn to translate, he smiled and said — " Thank you " — 
which was no doubt the long palaver. 

The governor conducts us through the sugar-factory, which is 
not on so grand a scale as those we shall see later, but hot 
enough and sticky enough, and then gives us the inevitable 
coffee in his office ; seemingly, if you clap your hands anywhere 
in Egypt, a polite and ragged attendant will appear with a tiny 
cup of coffee. 

The town is just such a collection of mud-hovels as the others, 
and we learn nothing new in it. Yes, we do. We learn how to 
scour brass dishes. We see at the doorway of a house where a 
group of women sit on the ground waiting for their hair to grow, 
two boys actively engaged in this scouring process. They stand in 
the dishes, which have sand in them, and, supporting themselves 
by the side of the hut, whirl half-way round and back. The 
soles of their feet must be like leather. This method of scour- 
ing is worth recording, as it may furnish an occupation for boys 
at an age when they are usually, and certainly here, useless. 

The weekly market is held in the open air at the edge of the 
town. The wares for sale are spread upon the ground, the 
people sitting behind them in some sort of order, but the crowd 
surges everywhere and the powdered dust rises in clouds. It is 



IN THE MARKET-PLACE. 171 

the most motley assembly we have seen. The women are tattooed 
on the face and on the breast ; they wear anklets of bone and of 
silver, and are loaded with silver ornaments. As at every other 
place where a fair, a wedding, or a funeral attracts a crowd, 
there are some shanties of the Ghawazees, who are physically 
superior to the other women, but more tattooed, their necks, 
bosoms and waists covered with their whole fortune in silver, 
their eyelids heavily stained with Kohl — bold-looking jades, who 
come out and stare at us with a more than masculine impudence. 

The market offers all sorts of green country produce, and 
eggs, corn, donkeys, sheep, lentils, tobacco, pipe-stems, and 
cheap ornaments in glass. The crowd hustles about' us in a 
troublesome manner, showing special curiosity about the ladies, 
as if they had rarely seen white women. Ahmed and another 
sailor charge into them with their big sticks to open a passage 
for us, but they follow us, commenting freely upon our appearance. 
The sailors jabber at them and at us, and are anxious to get us 
back to the boat; where we learn that the natives "not like 
you." The feeling is mutual, though it is discouraging to our 
pride to be despised by such barbarous half-clad folk. 

Beggars come to the boat continually for backsheesh ; a tall 
juggler in a white, dirty tunic , with a long snake coiled about 
his neck, will not go away for less than half a piastre. One 
tariff piastre (five cents) buys four eggs here, double the price of 
former years, but still discouraging to a hen. However, the 
hens have learned to lay their eggs small. All the morning we 
are trading in the desultory way in which everything is done 
here, buying a handful of eggs at a time, and live chickens by 
the single one. 

In the afternoon the boat is tracked along through a land that 
is bursting with richness, waving with vast fields of wheat, of 
lentils, of sugar-cane, interspersed with melons and beans. The 
date-palms are splendid in stature and mass of crown. We 
examine for the first time the Dom Palm, named from its shape, 
which will not flourish much lower on the river than here. Its 
stem grows up a little distance and then branches in two, and 
these two limbs each branch in two ; always in two. The leaves 



172 WORKING A SAKIYA. 

are shorter than those of the date-palm and the tree is altogether 
more scraggy, but at a little distance it assumes the dome form. 
The fruit, now green; hangs in large bunches a couple of feet 
long; each fruit is the size of a large Flemish Beauty pear. It 
lias a thick rind, and a stone, like vegetable ivory, so hard that 
it is used for drill-sockets. The fibrous rind is gnawed off by 
the natives when it is ripe and is said to taste like gingerbread. 
These people live on gums and watery vegetables and fibrous 
stuff that wouldn't give a northern man strength enough to 
gather them. 

We find also the sont acacia here, and dig the gum-arabic 
from its bark. In the midst of a great plain of wheat, intersected 
by ditches and raised footways we come upon a Sakiya, 
embowered in trees, which a long distance off makes itself 
known by the most doleful squeaking. These water-wheels, 
which are not unlike those used by the Persians, are not often 
seen lower down the river, where the water is raised by the 
shadoof. Here we find a well sunk to the depth of the Nile, 
and bricked up. Over it is a wheel, upon which is hung an 
endless rope of palm fibres and on its outer rim are tied earthen 
jars. As the wheel revolves these jars dip into the well and 
coming up discharge the water into a wooden trough, whence it 
flows into channels of earth. The cogs of this wheel fit into 
another, and the motive power of the clumsy machine is 
furnished by a couple of oxen or cows, hitched to a pole swinging 
round an upright shaft. A little girl, seated on the end of the 
pole is driving the oxen, whose slow hitching gait, sets the 
machine rattling and squeaking as if in pain. Nothing is exactly 
in gear, the bearings are never oiled; half the water is spilled 
before it gets to the trough; but the thing keeps grinding on, 
night and day, and I suppose has not been improved or changed 
in its construction for thousands of years. 

During our walk we are attended by a friendly crowd of men 
and boys; there are always plenty of them who are as idle as 
we are, and are probably very much puzzled to know why we 
roam about in this way. I am sure a N'ew England farmer, if 
lie saw a troop of these Arabs, strolling through his corn-field, 
would set his dogs on them. 



" THE NILE IS EGYPT." 173,' 

Both sides of the river are luxuriant here. The opposite 
bank, which is high, is lined with shadoofs, generally in sets of 
three, in order to raise the water to the required level. The 
view is one long to remember: — the long curving shore, with 
the shadoofs and the workmen, singing as they dip ; people in, 
flowing garments moving along the high bank, and processions 
of donkeys and camels as well; rows of palms above them, and 
beyond the purple Libyan hills, in relief against a rosy sky^, 
slightly clouded along the even mountain line. In the fore- 
ground the Nile is placid and touched with a little color. 

We feel more and more that the Nile is Egypt. Everything 
takes place on its banks. From our boat we study its life at our 
leisure. The Nile is always vocal with singing, or scolding, or 
calling to prayer ; it is always lively with boatmen or workmen, 
or picturesque groups, or women filling their water-jars. It is 
the highway ; it is a spectacle a thousand miles long. It supplies 
everything. I only wonder at one thing. Seeing that it is so 
swift, and knowing that it flows down and out into a world 
whence so many wonders come, I marvel that its inhabitants are 
contented to sit on its banks year after year, generation after 
generation, shut in behind and before by desert hills, without 
any desire to sail down the stream and get into a larger world. 
We meet rather intelligent men who have never journeyed so 
far as the next large town. 

Thus far we have had only a few days of absolutely cloudless 
skies ; usually we have some clouds, generally at sunrise and 
sunset, and occasionally an overcast day like this. But the 
cloudiness is merely a sort of shade ; there is no possibility of 
rain in it. 

And sure of good weather, why should we hasten } In fact, 
we do not. It is something to live a life that has in it neither 
worry nor responsibility. We take an interest, however, in How 
and Disnah and Fow, places where people have been living and 
dying now for a long time, which we cannot expect you to share. 
In the night while we are anchored a breeze springs up, and 
Abd-el-Atti roars at the sailors, to rouse them, but unsuccessfully, 
until he cries, 



174 



EASE AND ENJOYMENT. 



*' Come to prayer ! " 

The sleepers, waking, answer, 

"God is great, and Mohammed is his prophet." 

They then get up and set the sail. This is what it is to carry 
religion into daily life. 

To-day we have been going northward, for variety. Keneh, 
which is thirty miles higher up the river than How, is nine 
minutes further north. The Nile itself loiters through the 
land. As the crew are poling slowly along this hot summer day, 
we have nothing to do but to enjoy the wide and glassy Nile, its 
fertile banks vocal with varied life. The songs of Nubian 
boatmen, rowing in measured stroke down the stream, come to 
us. The round white wind-mills of Keneh are visible on the 
sand-hills above the town. Children are bathing and cattle and 
donkeys wading in the shallows, and the shrill chatter of women 
is heard on the shore. If this is winter, I wonder what summer 
here is like. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



MIDWINTER IN EGYPT. 



WHETHER we go north or south, or wait for some 
wandering, unemployed wind to take us round the next 
bend, it is all the same to us. We have ceased to 
care much for time, and I think we shall adopt the Assyrian 
system of reckoning. 

The period of the precession of the equinoxes was regarded 
as one day of the life of the universe; and this day equals 
43,200 of our years. This day, of 43,200 years, the Assyrians 
divided into twelve cosmic hours or " sars," each one of 3,600 
years; each of these hours into six "ners," of 600 years; and 
the "ner" into ten "sosses " or cosmic minutes^ of 600 years. 
And thus, as we reckon sixty seconds to a minute, our ordinary 
year was a second of the great chronological period. What then 
is the value of a mere second of time 1 What if we do lie half a 
day at this bank, in the sun, waiting for a lazy breeze .? There 
certainly is time enough, for we seem to have lived a cosmic 
hour since we landed in Egypt 

One sees here what an exaggerated importance we are accus- 
tomed to attach to the exact measurement of time. We 
constantly compare our watches, and are anxious that they 
should not gain or lose a second. A person feels his own 
importance somehow increased if he owns an accurate watch. 
There is nothing that a man resents more than the disparagement 
of his watch. (It occurs to me, by the way, that the superior 
attractiveness of women, that quality of repose and rest which 
the world finds in them, springs from the same amiable laisur 

1Y5 



176 WHERE THE EARTHEN JARS ARE MADE. 



aller that suffers their watches never to be correct. When the 
day comes that women's watches keep time, there will be no 
peace in this world). When two men meet, one of the most 
frequent interchanges of courtesies is to compare watches; 
certainly, if the question of time is raised, as it is sure to be 
shortly among a knot of men with us, every one pulls out his 
watch, and comparison is made. 

We are, in fact, the slaves of time and of fixed times. We 
think it a great loss and misfortune to be without the correct 
time ; and if we are away from the town-clock and the noon- 
gun, in some country place, we importune the city stranger, 
who appears to have a good watch, for the time ; or we lie in 
wait for the magnificent conductor of the railway express, who 
always has the air of getting the promptest time from headquarters. 

Here in Egypt we see how unnatural and unnecessary this 
anxiety is. Why should we care to know the exact time .? It is 
12 o'clock, Arab time, at sunset, and that shifts every evening, 
in order to wean us from the rigidity of iron habits. Time is 
flexible, it waits on our moods and we are not slaves to its 
accuracy. Watches here never agree, and no one cares whether 
they do or not. My own, which was formerly as punctual as the 
stars in their courses, loses on the Nile a half hour or three 
quarters of an hour a day (speaking in our arbitrary, artificial 
manner) ; so that, if I were good at figures, I could cypher out 
the length of time, which would suffice by the loss of time by 
my watch, to set me back into the age of Thothmes III. — a 
very good age to be in. We are living now by great cosmic 
periods, and have little care for minute divisions of time. 

This morning we are at B alias, no one knows how, for we 
anchored three times in the night. At Ballas are made the big 
earthen jars which the women carry on their heads, and which 
are sent from here the length of Egypt. Immense numbers 
of them are stacked upon the banks, and boat-loads of them 
are waiting for the wind. Rafts of these jars are made and 
floated down to the Delta; a frail structure, one would say, in 
the swift and shallow Nile, but below this place there are 
neither rocks in the stream nor stones on the shore. 



COMING TO ANCHOR. 177 

The sunrise is magnificent, opening a cloudless day, a day of 
hot sun, in which the wheat on the banks and under the palm- 
groves, now knee-high and a vivid green, sparkles as if it had 
dew on it. At night there are colors of salmon and rose in the 
sky, and on the water; and the end of the mountain, where 
Thebes lies, takes a hue of greyish or pearly pink. Thebes ! 
And we are really coming to Thebes ! It is fit that it should 
lie in such a bath of color. Very near to-night seems that 
great limestone ledge in which the Thebans entombed their 
dead; but it is by the winding river thirty miles distant. 

The last day of the year 1874 finds us lounging about in this 
pleasant Africa, very much after the leisurely manner of an 
ancient maritime expedition, the sailors of which spent most of 
their time in marauding on shore, watching for auguries, and 
sailing a little when the deities favored. The attempts, the 
failures, the mismanagements of the day add not a little to your 
entertainment on the Nile. 

In the morning a light breeze springs up and we are slowly 
crawling forward, when the wind expires, and we come to 
anchor in mid-stream. The Nile here is wide and glassy, but it 
is swift, and full of eddies that make this part of the river 
exceedingly difficult of navigation. We are too far from the 
shore for tracking, and another resource is tried. The sandal 
is sent ahead with an anchor and a cable, the intention being to 
drop the anchor and then by the cable pull up to it, and repeat 
the process until we get beyond these eddies and treacherous 
sand-bars. 

Of course the sailors in the sandal, who never think of two 
things at the same time, miscalculate the distance, and after 
they drop the anchor, have not rope enough to get back to the 
dahabeeh. There they are, just above us, and just out of reach, 
in a most helpless condition, but quite resigned to it. After 
various futile experiments they make a line with their tracking- 
cords and float an oar to us, and we send them rope to lengthen 
their cable. Nearly an hour is consumed in this. When the 
cable is attached, the crew begin slowly to haul it in through the 

pullies, walking the short' deck in a round and singing a chorus 
12 



178 PREPARING FOR THE NE W YEAR. 

of, " O Mohamm^^" to some catch-word or phrase of the leader. 
They like this, it is the kind of work that boys prefer, a sort of 
frolic :— 

"Allah,Allah!" 

And in response, 

"O Mohamm^^!" 
"God forgive us !" 

"O Mohamm<?£/!" 
" God is most great ! " 

"O Mohamm^^!" 
" El Hoseyn ! " 

"O MohamnW!" 

And so they go round as hilarious as if they played at leap- 
frog, with no limit of noise and shouting. They cannot haul a 
rope or pull an oar without this vocal expression. When the 
anchor is reached it is time for the crew to eat dinner. 

We make not more than a mile all day, with hard work, but 
we reach the shore. We have been two days in this broad, 
beautiful bend of the river, surrounded by luxuriant fields and 
palm-groves, the picture framed in rosy mountains of limestone, 
which glow in the clear sunshine. It is a becalmment in an 
enchanted place, out of which there seems to be no way, and if 
there were we are losing the desire to go. At night, as we lie 
at the bank, a row of ragged fellaheen line the high shore, like 
buzzards, looking down on us. There is something admirable 
in their patience, the only virtue they seem to practice. 

Later, Abd-el-Atti is thrown into a great excitement upon 
learning that this is the last day of the year. He had set his 
heart on being at Luxor, and celebrating the New Year with a 
grand illumination and burst of fire-works. If he had his way 
we should go blazing up the river in a perpetual fizz of pyrotech- 
nic glory. At Luxor especially, where many boats are usually 
gathered, and which is for many the end of the voyage, the drago- 
mans like to outshine each other in display. This is the fashion- 
able season at Thebes, and the harvest-time of its merchants of 
antiquities ; entertainments are given on shore, boats are illumin- 
ated, and there is a general rivalry in gaiety. Not to be in 



CUT OFF FROM THE WORLD. 179 

Thebes on New Year's is a misfortune. Something must be done. 
The Sheykh of the village of Tookh is sent for, in the hope that 
he can help as round the bend. The Sheykh comes, and sits on 
the deck and smokes. Orion also comes up the eastern sky, like 
a conqueror, blazing amid a blazing heaven. But we don't stir. 

Upon the bank sits the guard of men from the village, to 
protect us; the sight of the ragamuffins grouped round their 
lanterns is very picturesque. Whenever we tie up at night we 
are obliged to procure from the Sheykh of the nearest village a 
guard to keep thieves from robbing us, for the thieves are not 
only numerous but expert all along the Nile. No wonder. 
They have to steal their own crops, in order to get a fair share 
of the produce of the land they cultivate under the exactions of 
the government. The Sheykh would not dare to refuse the 
guard asked for. The office of Sheykh is still hereditary from 
father to eldest son, and the Sheykh has authority over his own 
village, according to the ancient custom, but he is subject to a 
Bey, set by the government to rule a district. 

New Year's morning is bright, sparkling, cloudless. When 
I look from my window early, the same row of buzzards sit 
on the high bank, looking down upon our deck and peering 
into our windows. Brown, ragged heaps of humanity; I 
suppose they are human. One of the youngsters makes 
mouths and faces at me; and, no doubt, despises us, as dogs 
and unbelievers. Behold our critic : — he has on a single 
coarse brown garment, through which his tawny skin shows. 
in spots, and he squats in the sand. 

What can come out of such a people.'' Their ignorance 
exceeds their poverty ; and they appear to own nothing save 
a single garment. They look not ill-fed, but ill-conditioned. 
And the country is skinned ; all the cattle, the turkeys, the 
chickens are lean. The fatness of the land goes elsewhere. 

In what contrast are these people, in situation, in habits, in 
every thought, to the farmers of America. This Nile valley 
is in effect cut off from the world ; nothing of what we call 
news enters it, no news, or book, no information of other 
countries, nor of any thought, or progress, or occurences. 



180 ''SMITHS'' COFFER POFULARITY. 

These people have not, in fact, the least conception of what 
the world is; they know no more of geography than they do 
of history. They think the world is flat, with an ocean of 
water round it. Mecca is the center. It is a religious neces- 
sity that the world should be flat in order to have Mecca its 
center. All Moslems believe that it is flat, as a matter of 
faith, though a few intelligent men know better. 

These people, as I say, do not know anything, as we esti- 
mate knowledge. And yet these watchmen and the group 
on the bank talked all night long; their tongues were racing 
incessantly, and it appeared to be conversation and not mono- 
logue or narration. What could they have been talking about .'' 
Is talk in the inverse ratio of knowledge, and do we lose the 
power or love for mere talk, as we read and are informed 1 

These people, however, know the news of the river. There 
is a sort of freemasonry of communication by which whatever 
occurs is flashed up and down both banks. They know all 
about the boats and who are on them, and the name of the 
dragomans, and hear of all the accidents and disasters. 

There was an American this year on the river, by the name 
of Smith — not that I class the coming of Smith as a disaster — 
who made the voyage on a steamboat. He did not care much 
about temples or hieroglyphics, and he sought to purchase no 
antiquities. He took his enjoyment in another indulgence. 
Having changed some of his pounds sterling into copper 
paras, he brought bags of this money with him. When the 
boat stopped at a town. Smith did not go ashore. He stood 
on deck and flung his coppers with a free hand at the group 
of idlers he was sure to find there. But Smith combined 
amusement with his benevolence, by throwing his largesse 
into the sand and into the edge of the river, where the 
recipients of it would have to fight and scramble and dive 
for what they got. When he cast a handful, there was 
always a tremendous scrimmage, a rolling of body over body, 
a rending of garments, and a tumbling into the river. This 
feat not only amused Smith, but it made him the most popular 
man on the river. Fast as the steamer went, his fame ran 



MUSCLES OF STEEL. 181 

before him, and at every landing there was sure to be a 
waiting crowd, calling, '' Smit, Smit." There has been no 
one in Egypt since Cambyses who has made so much stir as 
Smit. 

I should not like to convey the idea that the inhabitants 
here are stupid; far from it; they are only ignorant, and 
oppressed by long misgovernment. There is no inducement 
for any one to do more than make a living. The people have 
sharp countenances, they are lively, keen at a bargain, and, as 
we said, many of them expert thieves. They are full of 
deceit and cunning, and their affability is unfailing. Both 
vices and good qualities are products not of savagery, but of 
a civilization worn old and threadbare. The Eastern civili- 
zation generally is only one of manners, and I suspect that of 
the old Egyptian was no more. 

These people may or may not have a drop of the ancient 
Egyptian blood in them; they may be no more like the 
Egyptians of the time of the Pharaohs than the present 
European Jews are like the Jews of Judea in Herod's time; 
but it is evident that, in all the changes in the occupants of 
the Nile valley, there has been a certain continuity of habits, 
of modes of life, a holding to ancient traditions ; the relation 
of men to the soil is little changed. The Biblical patriarchs, 
fathers of nomadic tribes, have their best representatives 
to-day, in mode of life and even in poetical and highly 
figurative speech, not in Israelite bankers in London nor in 
Israelite beggars in Jerusalem, but in the Bedaween of the 
desert. And I think the patient and sharp-witted, but never 
educated, Egyptians of old times are not badly represented by 
the present settlers in the Nile valley. 

There are ages of hereditary strength in the limbs of the 
Egyptian women, who were here, carrying these big water- 
jars, before Menes turned the course of the Nile at Memphis. 
I saw one to-day sit down on her heels before a full jar that 
could not weigh less than a hundred pounds, lift it to her 
head with her hands, and then rise straight up with it, as if 
the muscles of her legs were steel. The jars may be heavier 



X82 CONSCRIPTS. 



than I said, for I find a full one not easy to lift, and I never 
saw an Egyptian man touch one. 

We go on towards Thebes slowly; though the river is not 
swifter here than elsewhere, we have the feeling that we are 
pulling up-hill. We come in the afternoon to Negadeh, and 
into one of the prettiest scenes on the Nile. The houses of 
the old town are all topped with pigeon-towers, and thousands 
of these birds are circling about the palm-groves or swooping 
in large flocks along the shore. The pigeons seem never to 
be slain by the inhabitants, but are kept for the sake of the 
fertilizer they furnish. It is the correct thing to build a 
second story to your house for a deposit of this kind. The 
inhabitants here are nearly all Copts, but we see a Roman 
Catholic church with its cross; and a large wooden cross 
stands in the midst of the village — a singular sight in a 
Moslem country. 

A large barge lies here waiting for a steamboat to tow it ta 
Keneh. It is crowded, packed solidly, with young fellows 
who have been conscripted for the army, so that it looks like 
a floating hulk covered by a gigantic swarm of black bees. 
And they are all buzzing in a continuous hum, as if the queen 
bee had not arrived. On the shore are circles of women, 
seated in the sand, wailing and mourning as if for the dead — 
the mothers and wives of the men who have just been seized 
for the service of their country. We all respect grief, and 
female grief above all ; but these women enter into grief as if 
it were a pleasure, and appear to enjoy it. If the son of one 
of the women in the village is conscripted, all the women join 
in with her in mourning. 

I presume there are many hard cases of separation, and that 
there is real grief enough in the scene before us. The 
expression of it certainly is not wanting ; relays of women 
relieve those who have wailed long enough ; and I see a little 
clay hut into which the women go, I have no doubt for 
refreshments, and from v/hich issues a burst of sorrow every 
time the door opens. 

Yet I suppose that there is no doubt that the conscriptioa 



PHILOSOPHICAL RECRUITS. 183 



(much as I hate the trade of the soldier) is a good thing for 
the boys and men drafted, and for Egypt. Shakirr Pasha told 
us that this is the first conscription in fifteen years, and that 
it does not take more than two per cent, of the men liable to 
military duty — one or two from a village. These lumpish 
and ignorant louts are put for the first time in their lives 
under discipline, are taught to obey ; they learn to read and 
write, and those who show aptness and brightness have an 
opportunity, in the technical education organized by General 
Stone, to become something more than common soldiers. 
When these men have served their time and return to their 
villages, they will bring with them some ideas of the world 
and some habits of discipline and subordination. It is proba- 
bly the speediest way, this conscription, by which the dull 
clodishness of Egypt can be broken up. I suppose that in 
time we shall discover something better, but now the harsh 
discipline of the military service is often the path by which 
a nation emerges into a useful career. 

Leaving this scene of a woe over which it is easy to be 
philosophical — the raw recruits, in good spirits, munching 
black bread on the barge while the women howl on shore — 
we celebrate the night of the New Year by sailing on, till 
presently the breeze fails us, when it is dark ; the sailors get 
out the small anchor forward, and the steersman calmly lets 
the sail jibe, and there is a shock, a prospect of shipwreck, 
and a great tumult, everybody commanding, and no one 
doing anything to prevent the boat capsizing or stranding. 
It is exactly like boys' play, but at length we get out of the 
tangle, and go on. Heaven knows how, with much pushing 
and hauling, and calling upon "Allah" and " Mohammed." 

No. We are not going on, but fast to the bottom, near the 
shore. 

In the morning we are again tracking with an occasional 
puflf of wind, and not more than ten miles from Luxor. We 
can, however, outwalk the boat ; and we find the country 
very attractive and surprisingly rich ; the great fields of wheat, 
growing rank, testify to the fertility of the soil, and when 



184 ''COME BIME-BV AND HIS COMRADE. 

the fields are dotted with palm-trees the picture is beautiful. 

It is a scene of wide cultivation, teeming with an easy, 
ragged, and abundant life. The doleful sakiyas are creaking 
in their ceaseless labor; frequent mud-villages dot with brown 
the green expanse, villages abounding in yellow dogs and 
coffee-colored babies ; men are working in the fields, directing 
the irrigating streams, digging holes for melons and small 
vegetables, and plowing. The plow is simply the iron-pointed 
stick that has been used so long, and it scratches the ground 
five or six inches deep. The effort of the government to 
make the peasants use a modern plow, in the Delta, failed. 
Besides the wheat, we find large cotton-fields, the plant in 
yellow blossoms, and also ripening, and sugar-cane. With 
anything like systematic, intelligent agriculture, what harvests 
this land would yield. 

" Good morning ! " 

The words were English, the speaker was one of two eager 
Arabs, who had suddenly appeared at our side. 

" Good morning. O, yes. Me guide Goorna." 

"What is Goorna.?" 

" Yes. Temp de Goorna. Come bime by." 

"What is Goorna.?" 

*' Plenty. I go you. You want buy any antiques ? Come 
bime by." 

" Do you live in Goorna.?" 

" All same. Memnonium, Goorna, I show all gentlemens. 
Me guide. Antiques ! O plenty. Come bime by." 

Come Bime By's comrade, an older man, loped along by his 
side, unable to join in this intelligent conversation, but it 
turned out that he was the real guide, and all the better in 
that he made no pretence of speaking any English. 
■ " Can you get us a mummy, a real one, in the original 
package, that hasn't been opened? " 

"You like. Come plenty mummy. Used be. Not now. 
You like, I get. Come bime by, bookra." 

We are in fact on the threshold of great Thebes. These are 
two of the prowlers among its sepulchres, who have spied our 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF THEBES. 185 

dahabeeh approaching from the rocks above the plain, and have 
•come to prey on us. They prey equally upon the living and 
the dead, but only upon the dead for the benefit of the living. 
They try to supply the demand which we tourists create. They 
might themselves be content to dwell in the minor tombs, in 
the plain, out of which the dead were long ago ejected; but 
Egyptologists have set them the example and taught them the 
profit of digging. If these honest fellows cannot always find 
the ancient scarabsei and the vases we want, they manufacture 
very good imitations of them. So that their industry is not 
altogether so ghastly as it may appear. 

We are at the north end of the vast plain upon which Thebes 
stood; and in the afternoon we land, and go to visit the 
northernmost ruin on the west bank, the Temple of Koorneh 
(Goomeh), a comparatively modern structure, begun by Sethi 
I., a great warrior and conqueror of the nineteenth dynasty, 
before the birth of Moses. 



CHAPTER XV. 



AMONG THE RUINS OF THEBES. 



YOU need not fear that you are to have inflicted upon you 
a description of Thebes, its ruins of temples, its statues, 
obelisks, pylons, tombs, holes in the ground, mummy-pits 
and mounds, with an attempt to reconstruct the fabric of its 
ancient splendor, and present you, gratis, the city as it was 
thirty-five hundred years ago, when Egypt was at the pinnacle 
of her glory, the feet of her kings were on the necks of every 
nation, and this, her capital, gorged with the spoils of near and 
distant maraudings, the spectator of triumph succeeding tri- 
umph, the depot of all that was precious in the ancient world, at 
once a treasure-house and a granary, ruled by an aristocracy of 
cruel and ostentatious soldiers and crafty and tyrannical priests, 
inhabited by abject Egyptians and hordes of captive slaves — was 
abandoned to a sensuous luxury rivaling that of Rome in her 
days of greatest wealth and least virtue in man or woman. 

I should like to do it, but you would go to sleep before you 
were half through it, and forget to thank the cause of your 
comfortable repose. We can see, however, in a moment, the 
unique situation of the famous town. 

We shall have to give up, at the outset, the notion of Homer's 
"hundred-gated Thebes." It is one of his generosities of 
speech. There never were any walls about Thebes, and it 
never needed any; if it had any gates they must have been 
purely ornamental structures ; and perhaps the pylons of the 
many temples were called gates. If Homer had been more 
careful in the use of his epithets he would have saved us a 
deal of trouble. 

186 



LUXOg AND KARNAK. 187 

Nature prepared a place here for a vast city. The valley of 
the Nile, narrow above and below, suddenly spreads out into a 
great circular plain, the Arabian and Libyan ranges of moun- 
tains falling back to make room for it. In the circle of these 
mountains, which are bare masses of limestone, but graceful and 
bold in outline, lies the plain, with some undulation of surface, 
but no hills : the rim of the setting sun is grey, pink, purple, 
according to the position of the sun ; the enclosure is green as 
the emerald. The Nile cuts this plain into two unequal parts. 
The east side is the broader, and the hills around it are neither 
so near the stream nor so high as the Libyan range. 

When the Nile first burst into this plain it seems to have been 
undecided what course to take through it. I think it has been 
undecided ever since, and has wandered about, shifting from 
bluff to bluff, in the long ages. Where it enters, its natural 
course would be under the eastern hills, and there, it seems to 
me, it once ran. Now, however, it sweeps to the westward, 
leaving the larger portion of the plain on the right bank. 
■ The situation is this : on the east side of the river are the temple 
of Luxor on a slight elevation and the modern village built in and 
around it ; a mile and^ a half below and further from the river, 
are the vast ruins of Karnak; two or three miles north-east of 
Karnak are some isolated columns and remains of temples. 
On the west side of the river is the great necropolis. The 
crumbling Libyan hills are pierced with tombs. The desert near 
them is nothing but a cemetery. In this desert are the ruins 
of the great temples, Medeenet Haboo, Dayr el Bahree, the 
Memnonium (or Rameseum, built by Rameses II., who suc- 
ceeded in affixing his name to as many things in Egypt as 
Michael Angelo did in Italy), the temple of Koorneh, and several 
smaller ones. Advanced out upon the cultivated plain a mile or 
so from the Memnonium, stand the two Colossi. Over beyond 
the first range of Libyan hills, or precipices, are the Tombs of 
the Kings, in a wild gorge, approached from the north by a 
winding sort of canon, a defile so hot and savage that a mummy 
passing through it couldn't have had much doubt of the place 
he was going to. 



X'88 A QUESTION FOR THE LEARNED. 

The ancient city of Thebes spread from its cemetery under 
and in the Libyan hills, over the plain beyond Karnak. Did 
the Nile divide that city? Or did ^ the Nile run under the 
eastern bluff and leave the plain and city one. 

It is one of the most delightful questions in the world, for no 
one knows anything about it, nor ever can know. Why, then, 
discuss it.? Is it not as important as most of the questions we 
discuss? What, then, would become of learning and scholarship, 
if we couldn't dispute about the site of Troy, and if we all 
agreed that the temple of Pandora Regina was dedicated to 
Neptune and not to Jupiter ? I am for united Thebes. 

Let the objector consider. Let him stand upon one of the 
terraces of Dayr el Bahree, and casting his eye over the plain 
and the Nile in a straight line to Karnak, notice the conformity 
of directions of the lines of both, temples, and that their avenues 
of sphinxes produced would have met; and let him say whether 
he does not think they did meet. 

Let the objector remember that the Colossi, which now stand 
in an alluvial soil that buries their bases over seven feet and is 
annually inundated, were originally on the hard sand of the 
desert; and that all the arable land of the west side has been 
made within a period easily reckoned ; that every yard adds to 
it the soil washed from the eastern bank. 

Farther, let him see how rapidly the river is eating away the 
bank at Luxor ; wearing its way back again, is it not ? to the 
old channel under the Arabian bluff, which is still marked. The 
temple at Luxor is only a few rods from the river. The English 
native consul, who built his house between the pillars of the 
temple thirty years ago, remembers that, at that time, he used 
to saddle his donkey whenever he wanted to go to the river. 
Observation of the land and stream above, at Erment, favors the 
impression that the river once ran on the east side and that it is 
working its way back to the old channel. 

The village of Erment is about eight miles above Luxor, and 
on the west side of the river. An intelligent Arab at Luxor 
told me that one hundred and fifty years ago Erment was on the 
east side. It is an ancient village, and boasts ruins ; among the 



THE RUINS OF ANCIENT THEBES. 189 

remaining sculptures is an authentic portrait of Cleopatra, who 
appears to have sat to all the stone-cutters in Upper Egypt. 
Here then is an instance of the Nile going round a town instead 
of washing it away. 

One thing more : Karnak is going to tumble into a heap some 
day, Great Hall of Columns and all. It is slowly having its 
foundations sapped by inundations and leachings from the Nile. 
Now, does it stand to reason that* Osirtasen, who was a sensible 
king and a man of family; that the Thothmes people, and 
especially Hatasoo Thothmes, the woman who erected the 
biggest obelisk ever raised ; and that the vain Rameses II., who 
spent his life in an effort to multiply his name and features in 
stone, so that time couldn't rub them out, would have spent so 
much money in structures that the Nile was likely to eat away 
in three or four thousand years ? 

The objector may say that the bed of the Nile has risen; and 
may ask how the river got over to the desert of the west side 
without destroying Karnak on its way. There is Erment, for an 
example. 

Have you now any idea of the topography of the plain "i I 
ought to say that along the western bank, opposite Luxor, 
stretches a long sand island joined to the main, in low water, 
and that the wide river is very shallow on the west side. 

We started for Koorneh across a luxuriant wheat-field, but soon 
struck the desert and the debris of the old city. Across the 
river, we had our first view of the pillars of Luxor and the 
pylons of Karnak, sights to heat the imagination and set the 
blood dancing. But how far off they are; on what a grand 
scale this Thebes is laid out — if one forgets London and Paris 
and New York. 

The desert we pass over is full of rifled tombs, hewn 
horizontally in rocks that stand above the general level. Some 
of them are large chambers, with pillars left for support. The 
doors are open and the sand drifts in and over the rocks in 
which they are cut. A good many of them are inhabited by 
miserable Arabs, who dwell in them and in huts among them. 
I fancy that, if the dispossessed mummies should reappear, they 



190 GLORIFICATION OF THE PHARAOHS. 



would differ little, except perhaps in being better clad, from 
these bony living persons who occupy and keep warm their 
sepulchres. 

Our guide leads us at a lively pace through these holes and 
heaps of the dead, over sand hot to the feet, under a sky blue 
and burning, for a mile and a half. He is the first Egyptian 
I have seen who can walk. He gets over the ground with a 
sort of skipping lope, barefooted, and looks not unlike a 
tough North American Indian. As he swings along, holding 
his thin cotton robe with one hand, we feel as if we were 
following a shade despatched to conduct us to some Unhappy 
Hunting-Grounds. 

Near 'the temple are some sycamore-trees and a collection 
of hovels called Koorneh, inhabited by a swarm of ill-con- 
ditioned creatures, who are not too proud to beg and probably 
are not ashamed to steal. They beset us there and in the 
ruins to buy all manner of valuable antiquities, strings of 
beads from mummies, hands and legs of mummies, small 
green and blue images, and the like, and raise such a clamor 
of importunity that one can hold no communion, if he desires 
to, with the spirits of Sethi I., and his son Rameses II., who 
spent the people's money in erecting these big columns and 
putting the vast stones on top of them. 

We are impressed with the massiveness and sombreness of 
the Egyptian work, but this temple is too squat to be effective, 
and is scarcely worth visiting, in comparison with others, 
except for its sculptures. Inside and out it is covered with 
them; either the face of the stone cut away, leaving the 
figures in relief, or the figures are cut in at the sides and left 
in relief in the center. The rooms are small — from the 
necessary limitations of roof-stones that stretched from wall 
to wall, or from column to column ; but all the walls, in dark- 
ness or in light, are covered with carving. 

The sculptures are all a glorification of the Pharaohs. We 
should like to know the unpronounceable names of the artists, 
who, in the conventional limits set them by their religion, drew 
pictures of so much expression and figures so life-like, and 



THE TWIN COLOSSI. 191 

chiseled these stones with such faultless execution ; but there 
are no names here but of Pharaoh and of the gods. 

The king is in battle, driving his chariot into the thick of the 
fight ; the king crosses rivers, destroys walled cities, routs armies ; 
the king appears in a triumphal procession with chained cap- 
tives, sacks of treasure, a menagerie of beasts, and a garden of 
exotic trees and plants borne from conquered countries ; the 
king is making offerings to his predecessors, or to gods many, 
hawk-headed, cow-headed, ibis-headed, man-headed. The 
king's scribe is taking count of the hands, piled in a heap, of 
the men the king has slain in battle. The king, a gigantic 
figure, the height of a pylon, grasps by the hair of the head a 
bunch of prisoners, whom he is about to slay with a raised club 
— as one would cut off the tops of a handful of radishes. 

There is a vein of '' Big Injun " running through them all. 
The same swagger and boastfulness, and cruelty to captives. I 
was glad to see one woman in the mythic crowd, doing the 
generous thing : Isis, slim and pretty, offers her breast to her son, 
and Horus stretches up to the stone opportunity and takes his 
supper like a little gentleman. And there is color yet in her 
cheek and robe that was put on when she was thirty-five hundred 
years younger than she is now. 

Towards the south we saw the more extensive ruins of the 
Memnonium and, more impressive still, the twin Colossi, one of 
them the so-called vocal statue of Memnon, standing up in the 
air against the evening sky more than a mile distant. They 
rose out of a calm green plain of what seemed to be wheat, but 
which was a field of beans. The friendly green about them 
seemed to draw them nearer to us in sympathy. At this distance 
we could not see how battered they were. And the unspeakable 
calm of these giant figures, sitting with hands on knees, front- 
ing the east, like the Sphinx, conveys the same impression of 
lapse of time and of endurance that the pyramids give. 

The sunset, as we went back across the plain, was gorgeous 
in Vermillion, crimson, and yellow. The Colossi dominated the 
great expanse, and loomed up in the fading light like shapes 
out of the mysterious past. 



192 



A TRIUMPHAL LANDING. 



Our dahabeeh had crept up to the east side of the island, and 
could only be reached by passing through sand and water. A 
deep though not wide channel of the Nile ran between us and 
the island. We were taken over this in a deep tub of a ferry- 
boat. Laboriously wading through^the sand and plowed fields 
of the island, we found our boat anchored in the stream, and 
the shore so shallow that even the sandal could not land. The 
sailors took us off to the row-boat on their backs. 

In the evening the dahabeeh is worked across and secured to 
the crumbling bank of the Luxor, And the accomplishment of 
a voyage of four hundred and fifty miles in sixteen days is, of 
course, announced by rockets. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



HISTORY IN STONE. 



"T NEVER rains at Thebes ; you begin with that fact. But 
everybody is anxious to have it rain, so that he can say, " It 
rained when I was at Thebes, for the first time in four 
thousand years." 

It has not rained for four thousand years, and the evidence of 
this is that no representation of rain is found in any of the 
sculptures on temples Or monuments; and all Egyptologists 
know that what is not found thus represented has had no 
existence. 

To-day, it rained for the first time in four thousand years 
The circumstances were these. We were crossing at sunset from 
the west side to the island, in a nasty little ferry, built like a 
canal-barge, its depths being full of all uncleanliness and smell 
— donkeys, peasants, and camels using it for crossing. (The 
getting of a camel in and out of such a deep trough is a work of 
time and considerable pounding and roaring of beast and men.) 
The boat was propelled by two half-clad, handsome, laughing 
Egyptian boys, who rowed with some crooked limbs of trees, and 
sang "Ha! Valesah," and "Yah! Mohammed " as they stood 
and pulled the unwieldy oars. 

We were standing, above the reek, on a loose platform of sticks 
at the stern, when my comrade said, " It rains, I think I felt a 
drop on my hand." 

" It can't be," I said, " it has not rained herein four thousand 
years ; " and I extended my hand. I felt nothing. And yet I 
could not swear that a drop or two did not fall into the river. 
13 193 



194: A PLEASANT WINTER RESIDENCE. 

It had that appearance, nearly. And we have seen no flies 
skipping on the Nile at this season. 

In the sculpture we remember that the king is often repre- 
sented extending his hand. He would not put it out for nothing, 
for everything done anciently in Egypt, every scratch on a rock, 
has a deep and profound meaning. Pharaoh is in the attitude 
of fearing that it is going to rain. Perhaps it did rain last night. 
At any rate, there were light clouds over the sky. 

The morning opens with a cool west wind, which increases 
andwhirls the sand in great clouds over the Libyan side of the 
river, and envelopes Luxor in its dry storm. Luxor is for the 
most part a collection of miserable mud-hovels on a low ridge, 
with the half-buried temple for a nucleus, and a few houses of a 
better sort along the bank, from which float the consular flags. 

The inhabitants of Luxor live upon the winter travelers. 
Sometimes a dozen or twenty gay dahabeehs and several steam- 
boats are moored here, and the town assumes the appearance of 
a fashionable watering-place. It is the best place on the river^ 
on the whole, considering its attractions for scholars and sight- 
seers, to spend the winter, and I have no doubt it would be a 
great resort if it had any accommodations for visitors. But it 
has not ; the stranger must live in his boat. There is not indeed 
in the whole land of Egypt above Cairo such a thing as an inn ; 
scarcely a refuge where a clean Christian, who wishes to keep 
clean, can pass a night, unless it be in the house of some governor 
or a palace of the Khedive. The perfection of the world's 
climate in winter is, to be sure, higher up, in Nubia ; but that of 
Thebes is good enough for people accustomed to Europe and 
New England. With steamboats making regular trips and a 
railroad crawling up the river, there is certain to be the Rameses 
Hotel at Thebes before long, and its rival a Thothmes House ; 
together with the Mummy Restaurant, and the Scarabaeus 
Saloon. 

You need two or three weeks to see properly the ruins of 
Thebes, though Cook's " personally conducted tourists " do it in 
four days, and have a soiree of the dancing-girls besides. The 
region to be traveled over is not only vast (Strabo says the city 



ILLUSTRIOUS VISITORS. 195 

was nine miles long) but it is exceedingly difficult getting about, 
and fatiguing, if haste is necessary. Crossing the swift Nile in a 
sandal takes time ; you must wade or be carried over shallows to 
the island beach ; there is a weary walk or ride over this ; another 
stream is to be crossed, and then begins the work of the day. 
You set out with a cavalcade of mules, servants, water-carriers, 
and a retinue of hungry, begging Arabs, over the fields and 
through the desert to the temples and tombs. The distances 
are long, the sand is glaring, the incandescent sun is reflected in 
hot waves from the burning Libyan chain. It requires hours to 
master the plan of a vast temple in its ruins, and days to follow 
out the story of the wonderful people who built it, in its marvel- 
ous sculptures — acres of inside and outside walls of picture cut 
in stone. 

Perhaps the easiest way of passing the time in an ancient ruin 
was that of two Americans, who used to spread their rugs in 
some shady court, and sit there, drinking brandy and champagne 
all day, letting the ancient civilization gradually reconstruct 
itself in their brains. 

Life on the dahabeeh is much as usual ; in fact, we are only 
waiting a favorable wind to pursue our voyage, expecting to see 
Thebes satisfactorily on our return. Of the inhabitants and 
social life of Luxor, we shall have more to say by and by. We 
have daily a levee of idlers on the bank, who spend twilight 
hours in watching the boat ; we are visited by sharp-eyed dealers 
in antiquities, who pull out strings of scarabsei from their bosoms, 
or cautiously produce from under their gowns a sculptured 
tablet, or a stone image, or some articles from a mummy-case — 
antiques really as good as new. Abd-el-Atti sits on the forward- 
deck cheapening the poor chickens with old women, and 
surrounded by an admiring group of Arab friends, who sit all 
day smoking and sipping coffee, and kept in a lively enjoyment 
by his interminable /<3:^^//(^ and badinage. 

Our most illustrious visitors are the American consul, Ali 
Effendi Noorad, and the English consul, Mustapha Aga. Ali is 
a well-featured, bronze-complexioned Arab of good family (I think 
of the Ababdehs), whose brother is Sheykh of a tribe at Karnak. 



196 NOSE-RINGS AND BEA UTY. 

He cannot speak English, but he has a pleasanter smile than 
any other American consul I know. Mustapha, now very old 
and well known to all Nile travelers, is a venerable wise man of 
the East, a most suave, courtly Arab, plausible, and soft of 
speech ; under his bushy eyebrows one sees eyes that are keen 
and yet glazed with a film of secrecy; the sort of eye that you 
cannot look into, but which you have no doubt looks into you. 

Mustapha, as I said, built his house between two columns of 
the temple of Luxor. These magnificent columns, with flaring 
lotus capitals, are half-buried in sand, and the whole area is so 
built in and over by Arab habitations that little of the once 
extensive and splendid structure can be seen. Indeed, the 
visitor will do well to be content with the well-known poetic 
view of the columns from the river. The elegant obelisk, whose 
mate is in Paris, must however be seen, as well as the statues of 
Rameses II. sitting behind it up to their necks in sand — as if a 
sitz-bath had been prescribed. I went one day into the interior 
of the huts, in order to look at some of the sculptures, especially 
that of a king's chariot which is shaded by a parasol — an article 
which we invented three or four thousand years after the Egypt- 
ians, who first used it, had gone to the shades where parasols 
are useless. I was sorry that I went. The private house I 
entered was a mud enclosure with a creaky wooden door. 
Opening this I found myself in what appeared to be a private 
hen-yard, where babies, chickens, old women, stray, flies, and 
dust, mingled with the odors of antiquity; about this were the 
rooms in which the family sleep — mere dog-kennels. Two of 
the women had nose-rings put through the right nostril, hoops 
of gold two or three inches across. I cannot say that a nose- 
ring adds to a woman's beauty, but if I had to manage a harem 
of these sharp-tongued creatures I should want rings in their 
noses — it would need only a slight pull of the cord in the ring to 
cause the woman to cry, in Oriental language, "where thou 
goest, I will go." The parasol sculpture was half-covered by 
the mud-wall and the oven; but there was Pharaoh visible, 
riding on in glory through all this squalor. The Pharaohs and 
priests never let one of the common people set foot inside these 



LITTLE FA TIM EH. \<^>J 



superb temples ; and there is a sort of base satisfaction now in 
in seeing the ignorant and oppressed living in their palaces, and 
letting the hens roost on Pharaoh's sun-shade. But it was 
difficult to make picturesque the inside of this temple-palace, 
even with all the flowing rags of its occupants. 

We spend a day in a preliminary visit to the Memnonium and 
the vast ruins known as those of Medeenet Haboo. Among 
our attendants over the plain are half a dozen little girls, 
bright, smiling lasses, who salute us with a cheery ''Good- 
morning," and devote themselves to us the whole day. Each 
one carries on her head a light, thin 'w2iter-koolleh, that would 
hold about a quart, balancing it perfectly as she runs along. I 
have seen mere infants carrying very small koollehs, beginning 
thus young to learn the art of walking with the large ones, 
which is to be the chief business of their lives. 

One of the girls, who says her name is Fatimeh (the name 
of the Prophet's favorite daughter is in great request), is very 
pretty, and may be ten or eleven years old, not far from the 
marriageable age. She has black hair, large, soft, black eyes, 
the lids stained with kohl, dazzling white teeth and a sweet 
smile. She wears cheap earrings, a necklace of beads and 
metal, .and a slight ring on one hand; her finger-nails and 
the palms of her little hands are stained with henna. For 
dress she has a sort of shawl used as a head-veil, and an 
ample outer-garment, a mantle of dark-blue cotton, orna- 
mented down the front seams with colored beads — a coquettish 
touch that connects her with her sisters of the ancient regime 
who seem, to have used the cylindrical blue bead even more 
profusely than ladies now-a-day the jet "bugles," in dress 
trimming. I fear the pretty heathen is beginning to be aware 
of her attractions. 

The girls run patiently beside us or wait for us at the 
temples all day, bruising their feet on the stony ways, getting 
nothing to eat unless we give them something, chatting 
cheerfully, smiling at us and using their little stock of En- 
glish to gain our good will, constantly ready with their 
hoollehs, and say nothing of backsheesh until they are about to 



198 A ''DOCTORED" MUMMY-HAND. 

leave us at night and go to their homes. But when they 
begin to ask, and get a copper or two, they beg with a mixture 
of pathos and anxiety and a use of the pronouns that is 
irresistible. 

"You tired. Plenty backsheesh for little girl. Yes." 

"Why don't you give us backsheesh.? We are tired too," 
we reply. 

" Yes. Me give you backsheesh you tired all day." 

Fatimeh only uses her eyes, conscious already of her power. 
They are satisfied with a piastre ; which the dragoman says is 
too much, and enough to spoil them. But, after all, five cents 
is not a magnificent gift, from a" stranger who has come five 
thousand miles, to a little girl in the heart of Africa, who has 
lighted up the desert a whole day with her charming smiles! 

The donkey-boy pulls the strings of pathos for his back- 
sheesh, having no beauty to use ; he says, " Father and mother 
all dead." Seems to have belonged to a harem. 

Before we can gain space or quiet either to examine or 
enjoy a temple, we have to free ourselves of a crowd of 
adhesive men, boys, and girls, who press upon us their curi- 
osities, relics of the dead, whose only value is their antiquity. 
The price of these relics is of course wholly "fancy," and I 
presume that Thebes, where the influence of the antique is 
most strong, is the best market in the world for these trifles ; 
and that however cheaply they may be bought here, they 
fetch a better price than they would elsewhere. 

I suppose if I were to stand in Broadway and off"er passers-by 
such a mummy's hand as this which is now pressed upon my 
notice, I could scarcely give it away. This hand has been 
" doctored " to sell ; the present owner has re-wrapped its 
bitumen-soaked flesh in mummy-cloth, and partially concealed 
three rings on the fingers. Of course the hand is old and the 
cheap rings are new. It is pleasant to think of these mer- 
chants in dried flesh prowling about among the dead, selecting 
a limb here and there that they think will decorate well, and 
tricking out with cheap jewelry these mortal fragments. This 
hand, which the rascal has chosen, is small, and may have 



THE PLUNDER OF THE TOMBS. I99 

been a source of pride to its owner long ago; somebody else 
may have been fond of it, though even he — the lover — would 
not care to hold it long now. A pretty little hand; I suppose 
it has in its better days given many a caress and love-pat, and 
many a slap in the face; belonged to one of the people, or it 
would not have been found in a common mummy-pit ; perhaps 
the hand of a sweet water-bearer like Fatimeh, perhaps of 
some slave-girl whose fatal beauty threw her into the drag-net 
that the Pharaohs occasionally cast along the Upper Nile — 
slave-hunting raids that appear on the monuments as great 
military achievements. This hand, naked, supple, dimpled, 
henna-tipped, may have been offered for nothing once; there 
are wanted for it four piastres now, rings and all. A dear 
little hand ! 

Great quantities of antique beads are offered us in strings, 
to one end of which is usually tied a small image of Osiris, 
or the winged sun, or the scarabseus with wings. The 
inexhaustible supply of these beads and images leads many to 
think that they are manufactured to suit the demand. But it 
is not so. Their blue is of a shade that is not produced 
now-a-days. And, besides, there is no need to manufacture 
what exists in the mummy-pits in such abundance. The 
beads and bugles are of glass; they were much used for 
necklaces and are found covering the breasts of mummies, 
woven in a network of various patterns, like old bead purses. 
The vivid blue color was given by copper. 

The little blue images of Osiris which are so abundant are 
also genuine. They are of porcelain, a sort of porcelain-glass, 
a sand-paste, glazed, colored blue, and baked. They are found in 
great quantities in all tombs ; and it was the Egyptian practice 
to thickly strew with them the ground upon which the founda- 
tions and floors of temples were laid. These images found in 
tombs are more properly figures of the dead under the form 
of Osiris, and the hieroglyphics on them sometimes give the 
name and quality of the departed. They are in fact a sort of 
"p.p. c." visiting-card, which the mummy has left for future 
ages. The Egyptians succeeded in handing themselves down 



200 EXPLOITS OF RAMESES II. 

to posterity ; but the manner in which posterity has received 
them is not encouraging to us to salt ourselves down for 
another age. 

The Memnonium, or more properly Rameseum, since it 
was built by Rameses II., and covered with his deeds, writ in 
stone, gives you even in its ruins a very good idea of one of 
the most symmetrical of Egyptian temples; the vast columns 
of its great hall attest its magnificence, while the elaboration 
of its sculpture, wanting the classic purity of the earlier 
work found in the tombs of Geezeh and Sakkara, speaks of a 
time when art was greatly stimulated by royal patronage. 

It was the practice of the Pharaohs when they came to the 
throne to make one or more military expeditions of conquest 
and plunder, slay as many enemies as possible (all people 
being considered "enemies" who did not pay tribute), cut as 
wide a swarth of desolation over the earth as they were able, 
loot the cities, drag into captivity the pleasing women, and 
return laden with treasure and slaves and the evidences of 
enlarged dominion. Then they spent the remainder of their 
virtuous days in erecting huge temples and chiseling their 
exploits on them. This is, in a word, the history of the 
Pharaohs. 

But I think that Rameses II., who was the handsomest and 
most conceited swell of them all, was not so particular about 
doing the deeds as he was about recording them. He could 
not have done much else in his long reign than erect the 
temples, carve the hieroglyphics, and set up the statues of 
himself, which proclaim his fame. He literally spread himself 
all over Egypt, and must have kept the whole country busy, 
quarrying, and building, and carving for his glorification. 
That he did a tenth of the deeds he is represented performing, 
no one believes now; and I take a vindictive pleasure in 
abusing him. By some historic fatality he got the name of 
the Great Sesostris, and was by tradition credited with the 
exploits of Thothmes III., the greatest of the Pharaohs, a real 
hero and statesman, during whose reign it was no boast to say 
that Egypt " placed her frontier where it pleased herself," and 



RETURNING WITH THE SPOIL 201 

with those of his father Sethi I., a usurper in the line, but a 
great soldier. 

However, this Rameses did not have good luck with his 
gigantic statues; I do not know one that is not shattered, 
defaced, or thrown down. This one at the Rameseum is only 
a wreck of gigantic fragments. It was a monolith of syenite, 
and if it was the largest statue in Egypt, as it is said, it must 
have been over sixty feet high. The arithmeticians say that 
it weighed about eight hundred and eighty-seven tons, having 
a solid content of three times the largest obelisk in the 
world, that at Karnak. These figures convey no idea to my 
mind. When a stone man is as big as a four-story house, I 
cease to grasp him. I climbed upon the arm of this Rameses, 
and found his name cut deeply in the hard granite, the cutting 
polished to the very bottom like the finest intaglio. The 
polishing alone of this great mass must have been an incredi- 
ble labor. How was it moved from its quarry in Assouan, a 
hundred and thirty miles distant? And how was it broken 
into the thousand fragments in which it lies.? An earth- 
quake would not do it. There are no marks of drilling or 
the use of an explosive material. But if Cambyses broke 
it — and Cambyses must have been remembered in Egypt as 
Napoleon I. is in Italy, the one for smashing, the other for 
stealing — he had something as destructive as nitro-glycerine. 

Rameses 11. impressed into his service not only art but 
literature. One of his achievements depicted here is his 
victory over the Khitas (Hittites), an Asiatic tribe; the king 
is in the single-handed act of driving the enemy over the 
river Orontes, — a blueish streak meandering down the wall. 
This scene is the subject of a famous poem, known as the 
Poem of Pentaour, which is carved in hieroglyphics at 
Karnak and at Luxor. The battle is very spiritedly depicted 
here. On the walls are many side-scenes and acts character, 
istic of the age and the people. The booty from the enemy 
is collected in a heap; and the quantity of gold is indicated 
by the size of a bag of it which is breaking the back of an 
ass; a soldier is pulling the beard of his prisoner, and 



202 SKILL OF THE ANCIENT ARTISTS. 

another is beating his captives, after the brutal manner of the 
Egyptians. 

The temples at Medeenet Haboo are to me as interesting as 
those at Karnak. There are two ; the smaller one is of various 
ages; but its oldest portions were built by Amun-noo-het, 
the sister of Thothmes, the woman who has left more monu- 
ments of her vigor than any other in history, and, woman-like, 
the monuments are filial offerings, and not erections to her 
own greatness; the larger temple is the work of Rameses III. 
The more you visit it, the more you will be impressed with 
the splendor of its courts, halls and columns, and you may 
spend days in the study of its sculptures without exhausting; 
them. 

Along these high-columned halls stalk vast processions,, 
armies going to battle, conquerors in triumphal entry, priests 
and soldiers bearing sacrifices, and rows of stone deities of 
the Egyptian pantheon receiving them in a divine indifference. 
Again the battle rages, the chariots drive furiously, arrows fill 
the air, the foot-troops press forward with their big spears 
and long shields, and the king is slaying the chief, who 
tumbles from his car. The alarm has spread to the country 
beyond ; the terrified inhabitants are in flight; a woman, such 
is the detail, is seen to snatch her baby and run into the 
woods, leaving her pot of br.oth cooking on the fire. 

The carving in this temple is often very deep, cut in four or 
five inches in the syenite, and beautifully polished to the bottom, 
as if done with emery. The colors that once gave each figure 
its character, are still fresh, red, green, blue, and black. The 
ceilings of some of the chambers yet represent the blue and star- 
sprinkled sky. How surpassingly brilliant these must have been 
once ! We see how much the figure owed to color, when the 
color designated the different nationalities, the enemies or the 
captives, the shade of their skin, hair, beard and garments. We 
recognize, even, textures of cloth, and the spotted leopard-skins 
worn by the priests. How gay are the birds of varied plumage ! 

There is considerable variety in sculpture here, but, after all,, 
an endless repetition on wall after wall, in chamber after chamber, 



THE APOTHEOSIS OF A PHARAOH. 203 

of the same royal persons, gods, goddesses, and priests. There 
is nothing on earth so tiresome as a row of stone gods, in whom 
I doubt if anybody ever sincerely believed, standing to receive 
the offerings of a Turveydrop of a king. Occasionally the gods 
take turn about, and pour oil on the head of a king, at his 
coronation, and with this is usually the very pretty device of 
four birds flying to the four quarters of the globe to announce 
the event. But whatever the scene, warlike or religious, it is for 
the glorification of Pharaoh, all the same. He is commonly 
represented of gigantic size, and all the other human figures 
about him are small in comparison. It must have kept the 
Pharaoh in a constantly inflated condition, to walk these halls 
and behold, on all sides, his extraordinary apotheosis. But the 
Pharaoh was not only king but high priest, and the divine rep- 
resentative on earth, and about to become, in a peculiar sense> 
Osiris himself, at his death. 

The Egyptians would have saved us much trouble if they had 
introduced perspective into these pictures. It is difficult to feel 
that a pond of water, a tree and a house, one above the other 
on a wall, are intended to be on the same level. We have to 
accustom ourselves to figures always in profile, with the eye cut 
in full as if seen in front, and both shoulders showing. The 
hands of prisoners are tied behind them, but this is shown by 
bringing both elbows, with no sort of respect for the man's 
anatomy, round to the side, toward us, yet it is wonderful what 
character and vivacity they gave to their figures, and how by 
simple profile they represent nationalities and races, Ethiops,, 
Nubians, Jews, Assyrians, Europeans. 

These temples are inlaid and overlaid and surrounded with 
heaps of rubbish, and the debris of ancient and modern mud and 
unbaked-brick dwellings ; part of the great pillars are entirely 
covered. The Christians once occupied the temples, and there 
are remains of a church, and a large church, in one of the vast 
courts, built of materials at hand, but gone to ruin more complete 
than the structure around it. The early Christians hewed away 
the beautiful images of Osiris from the pillars (an Osiride pillar is 
one upon one side of which, and the length of it, is cut in full 



204: CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND PAGAN TEMPLES. 

relief, only attached at the back, a figure of Osiris), and covered 
the hieroglyphics and sculptures with plaster. They defaced 
these temples as the Reformers hacked and whitewashed the 
cathedrals of Germany. And sometimes the plaster which was 
meant to cover forever from sight the images of a mysterious 
religion, has defeated the intentions of the plasterers, by preserv- 
ing, to an age that has no fear of stone gods, the ancient pictures, 
sharp in outline and fresh in color. 

It is indeed marvelous that so much has been preserved, 
considering what a destructive creature man is, and how it 
pleases his ignoble soul to destroy the works of his forerunners 
on the earth. The earthquake has shaken up Egypt time and 
again, but Cambyses was worse ; he was an earthquake with 
malice and purpose, and left little standing that he had leisure 
to overturn. The ancient Christians spent a great deal of time 
in rubbing out the deep-cut hieroglyphics, chiseling away the 
heads of strange gods, covering the pictures of ancient cere- 
monies and sacrifices, and painting on the walls their own rude 
conceptions of holy persons and miraculous occurrences. And 
then the Moslems came, hating all images and pictorial repre- 
sentations alike, and scraped away or battered with bullets the 
work of pagans and Christians. 

There is much discussion whether these so-called temples were 
not palaces and royal residences as well as religious edifices. 
Doubtless many of them served a double purpose; the great 
pylons and propylons having rooms in which men might have 
lived, who did not know what a comfortable house is. Certainly 
no palaces of the Pharaohs have been discovered in Egypt, if 
these temples are not palaces in part ; and it is not to be supposed 
that the Pharaoh dwelt in a mud-house with a palm-roof, like a 
common mortal. He was the religious as well as the civil head. 
Pope and Caesar in one, and it is natural that he should have 
dwelt in the temple precincts. 

The pyramidal towers of the great temple of Medeenet 
Haboo are thought to be the remains of the palace of Rameses 
III. Here indeed the Egyptologists point out his harem and 
the private apartments, when the favored of Amun-Re unbent 



"SOCIETY" IN ANCIENT EGYPT. 205 

himself from his usual occupation of seizing a bunch of 
captives by the hair and slashing off their heads at a blow, in 
the society of his women and the domestic enjoyments of a 
family man. Here we get an insight into the private life of 
the awful monarch, and are able to penetrate the mysteries of 
his retirement. It is from such sculptures as one finds here 
that scholars have been able to rehabilitate old Egyptian 
society and tell us not only what the Egyptians did but what 
they were thinking about. The scholar, to whom we are 
most indebted for the reconstruction of the ancient life of the 
Egyptians, Sir Gardner "Wilkinson, is able not only to describe 
to us a soiree, from paintings in tombs at Thebes, but to tell us 
what the company talked about and what their emotions 
were. " In the meantime," he says, " the conversation became 
animated," (as it sometimes does at parties) " and the ladies 
fluently discussed the question of dress," *' the maker of an 
earring and the shop where it was purchased was anxiously 
inquired." On one occasion when the guests were in "rap- 
tures of admiration " over something, an awkward youth 
overturned a pedestal, creating great confusion and fright- 
ening the women, who screamed ; however, no one was hurt, 
and harmony being restored, "the incident afforded fresh 
matter for conversation, to be related in full details to their 
friends when they returned home." 

This is very wonderful art, and proves that the Egyptians 
excelled all who came after them in the use of the chisel and 
brush ; since they could not only represent in a drawing on 
the wall of a tomb the gaiety of an evening party and the 
subject of its conversation, but could make the picture convey 
as well the talk of the guests to their friends after they 
returned home ! 

We had read a good deal about the harem of Rameses III., 
and it was naturally the first object of our search at Medeenet 
Haboo. At the first visit we could not find it, and all our 
expectation of his sweet domestic life was unrealizeJd. It was 
in vain that we read over the description : — " Here the king is 
attended by his harem, some of whom present him with 



206 A PEEP INTO THE KING'S HAREM. 

flowers, or wave before him fans and flabella ; and a favorite 
is caressed, or invited to divert his leisure hours with a game 
of draughts." We climbed everywhere, and looked into 
every room, but the king and his harem were not visible. 
And yet the pictures, upon which has been built all this fair 
fabric of the domestic life of Rameses, must exist somewhere 
in these two pyramidal towers. And what a gallery of 
delights it must be, we thought. The king attended by his 
harem ! 

Upon a subsequent visit, we insisted that the guide should 
take us into this harem. That was not possible, but he would 
show it to us. We climbed a broken wall, from the top of 
which we could look up, through a window, into a small 
apartment in the tower. The room might be ten feet by 
twelve in size, probably smaller. There was no way of 
getting to it by any interior stairway or by any exterior one, 
that we could see, and I have no doubt that if Pharaoh lived 
there he climbed up by a ladder and pulled his harem up after 
him. 

But the pictures on the walls, which we made out by the 
help of an opera-glass, prove this to have been one of the 
private apartments, they say. There are only two -pictures, 
only one, in fact, not defaced; but as these are the only 
examples of the interior decoration of an ancient royal palace 
in all Egypt, it is well to make the most of them. They are 
both drawn in spirited outlines and are very graceful, the 
profile faces having a Greek beauty. In one Rameses III., of 
colossal size, is represented seated on an elegant fauteidly 
with his feet on a stool. He wears the royal crown, a 
necklace, and sandals. Before him stands a lady of his harem, 
clad in a high crown of lotus-stems, a slight necklace, and 
sandals turned up like skates. It must be remembered that 
the weather was usually very warm in Thebes, especially on 
this side the river. The lady is holding up a lotus-flower, but 
it is very far from the royal nose, and indeed she stands so far 
off, that the king has to stretch out his arm to chuck her 
under the chin. The Pharaoh's beautiful face preserves its 



A RO YAL GAME OF DRA UGHTS. 207 

immortal calm, and the " favorite is caressed " in accordance 
with the chastest requirements of high art. 

In the other picture, the Pharaoh is seated as before, but 
he is playing at draughts. In his left hand he holds some men, 
and his right is extended lifting a piece from the draught- 
board. His antagonist has been unfortunate. Her legs are 
all gone; her head has disappeared. There remain of this 
"favorite " only the outline of part of the body, the right arm 
and the hand which lifts a piece, and a suggestion of the left 
arm extended at full length and pushing a lotus-bud close to 
the king's nose. It is an exhibition of man's selfishness* 
The poor woman is not only compelled to entertain the 
despot at the game, but she must regale his fastidious and 
scornful nose at the same time; it must have been very 
tiresome to keep the left hand thus extended through a whole 
game. What a passion the Egyptians had for the heavy 
perfume of this flower. They are smelling it in all their 
pictures. 

We climbed afterwards, by means of a heap of rubbish, 
into a room similar to this one, in the other tower, where we 
saw remains of the same sculpture. It was like the Egyptians 
to repeat that picture five hundred times in the same palace. 

The two Colossi stand half a mile east of the temple of 
Medeenet Haboo, and perhaps are the survivors of like figures 
which lined an avenue to another temple. One of them is 
better known to fame than any other ancient statue, and rests 
its reputation on the most shadowy basis. In a line with 
these statues are the remains ot other colossi of nearly the same 
size, buried in the alluvial deposit. These figures both rep- 
resent Amunoph III. (about 1500 or 1600 b. c.) ; they are 
seated ; and on either side of the legs of the king, and attached 
to the throne, are the statues of his mother and daughter, lit- 
tle women, eighteen feet high. The colossi are fifty feet high 
without the bases, and must have stood sixty feet in the air 
before the Nile soil covered the desert on which they were 
erected. The pedestal is a solid stone thirty-three feet long. 

Both were monoliths. The southern one is still one piece, 



208 THE VOCAL STA TUB OF MEMNON. 

but shockingly mutilated. The northern one is the famous 
Vocal Statue of Memnon ; though why it is called of Memnon and 
why "vocal" is not easily explained. It was broken into 
fragments either by some marauder, or by an earthquake at the 
beginning of our era, and built up from the waist by blocks of 
stone, in the time of the Roman occupation, during the reign of 
Septimius Severus. 

There was a tradition — perhaps it was only the tradition of a 
tradition — that it used to sing every morning at sunrise. No 
mention is made of this singing property, however, until after it 
was overthrown; and its singing ceased to be heard after the 
Roman Emperor put it into the state in which we now see it. 
It has been assumed that it used to sing, and many theories 
have been invented to explain its vocal method. Very likely 
the original report of this prodigy was a Greek or Roman 
fable; and the noise may have been produced by a trick for 
Hadrian's benefit (who is said to have heard it) in order to keep 
up the reputation of the statue. 

Amunoph III. (or Amenophis, or Amen-hotep — he never 
knew how to spell his name) was a tremendous slasher-about 
over the territories of other people; there is an inscription 
down at Samneh (above the second cataract) which says that he 
brought, in one expedition, out of Soudan, seven hundred and 
forty negro prisoners, half of whom were women and children. 
On the records which this modest man made, he is " Lord of 
both worlds, absolute master, Son of the Sun." He is Horus, 
the strong bull. "He marches and victory is gained, like 
Horus, son of Isis, like the Sun in heaven." He also built 
almost as extensively as Rameses II.; he covered both banks of 
the Nile with splendid monuments; his structures are found 
from Ethiopia to the Sinaitic peninsula. He set up his image 
in this Colossus, the statue which the Greeks and Romans called 
Memnon, the fame of which took such possession of the 
imagination of poets and historians. They heard, or said they 
heard, Memnon, the Ethiopian, one of the defenders of Troy, 
each morning saluting his mother, Aurora. 

If this sound was heard, scientists think it was produced by 



A MYSTERIOUS VOICE. "209 

the action of the sun's rays upon dew fallen in the crevices 
of the broken figure. Others think the sound was produced by 
a priest who sat concealed in the lap of the figure and struck a 
metallic stone. And the cavify and the metallic stone exist there 
now. Of course the stone was put in there and the cavity left, 
when the statue was repaired, it having been a monolith. And 
as the sound was never heard before the statue was broken nor 
after it was repaired, the noise was not produced by the 
metallic stone. And if I am required to believe that the statue 
sang with his head off, I begin to doubt altogether. I incline to 
think that we have here only one of those beautiful myths in 
which the Greeks and Romans loved to clothe the distant and 
the gigantic. 

One of the means of accounting for a sound which may never 
have been heard, is that the priests produced it in order to 
strike with awe the people. Now, the Egyptian priests never 
cared anything about the people, and wouldn't have taken the 
trouble; indeed, in the old times "people" wouldn't have been 
allowed anywhere within such a sacred inclosure as this in 
which the Colossus stood. And, besides, the priest could not 
have got into the cavity .mentioned. When the statue was a 
monolith, it would puzzle him to get in; and there is no 
stairway or steps by which he could ascend now. We sent an 
Arab up, who scaled the broken fragments with extreme difficulty, 
and struck the stone. The noise produced was like that made by 
striking the metallic stones we find in the desert, — not a reson- 
ance to be heard far. 

So that I doubt that there was any singing at sunrise by the 
so-called Memnon (which was Amunoph), and I doubt that it 
was d priestly device. 

This Amunoph family, whose acquaintance we have been 
obliged to make, cut a wide swarth in their day; they had 
eccentricities, and there are told a great many stories about 
them, which might interest you if you could belifeve that the 
Amunophs were as real as the Hapsburgs and the Stuarts and 
the Grants. 

Amunoph I. (or Amen-hotep) was the successor of Amosis 
14 



210 PICTURES OF SOME CHARMING GIRLS. 

(or Ahmes) who expelled the Shepherds, and even pursued them 
into Canaan and knocked their walled-towns about their heads. 
Amunoph I. subdued the Shasu or Bedaween of the desert 
between Egypt and Syria, as much as those hereditary robbers 
were ever subdued. This was in the seventeenth century b. c. 
This king also made a naval expedition up the Nile into Ethio- 
pia, and it is said that he took captive there the " chief of the 
mountaineers." Probably then, he went into Abyssinia, and did 
not discover the real source of the Nile. 

The fourth Amunoph went conquering in Asia, as his prede- 
cessors had done, for nations did not stay conquered in those 
days. He was followed by his seven daughters in chariots of 
war. These heroic girls fought, with their father, and may be 
seen now, in pictures, gently driving their chariot-wheels over 
the crushed Asiatics. When Amunoph IV. came home and 
turned his attention to religion, he made lively work with the 
Egyptian pantheon. This had grown into vast proportions from 
the time of Menes, and Amunoph did not attempt to improve it 
or reform it ; he simply set it aside, and established a new religion. 
He it was who abandoned Thebes and built Tel-el-Amarna, and 
there set up the worship of a single god, Aten, represented by 
the sun's disc. He shut up the old temples, effaced the images 
of the ancient gods, and persecuted mercilessly their worshippers 
throughout the empire. 

He was prompted to all this by his mother, for he himself was 
little better than an imbecile. It was from his mother that he 
took his foreign religion as he did his foreign blood, for there was 
nothing of the Egyptian type in his face. His mother. Queen 
Taia, wife of Amunoph III., had light hair, blue eyes and rosy 
cheeks, the characteristics of northern women. She was npt of 
royal family, and not Egyptian ; but the child of a foreign family 
then living in the Delta, and probably the king married her for 
her beauty and cleverness. 

M. Lenormant thinks she was a Hebrew. That people were 
then very numerous in the Delta, where they lived unmolested 
keeping their own religion, a very much corrupted and material- 
ized monotheism. Queen Taia has the complexion and features 



WOMAN IN HISTOR V. 211 

of the Hebrews — I don't mean of the Jews who are now dis- 
persed over the continents. Lenormant credits the Hebrews, 
through the Queen Taia, with the overthrow of the Pharaonic 
religion and the establishment of the monotheism of Amu- 
noph IV. — a worship that had many external likenesses to the 
Hebrew forms. At Tel-el-Amarna we see, among the utensils 
of the worship of Aten, the Israelitish "Table of Shew-bread." 
It is also noticed that the persecution of the Hebrews coincides 
with the termination of the religious revolution introduced by 
the son of Taia. 

Whenever a pretty woman of talent comes into history she 
makes mischief. The episode of Queen Taia is however a great 
relief to the granite-faced monotony of the conservative Pharaohs. 
Women rulers and regents always make the world lively for the 
time being — and it took in this case two or three generations to 
repair the damages. Smashing things and repairing damages — 
that is history, 

History starts up from every foot of this Theban plain, piled 
four or five deep with civilizations. These temples are engulfed 
in rubbish ; what the Persians and the earthquake spared, Copts 
and Arabs for centuries have overlaid with their crumbling hab- 
itations. It requires a large draft upon the imagination to 
reinstate the edifices that once covered this vast waste ; but we 
are impressed with the size of the city, when we see the long 
distances that the remaining temples are apart, and the evidence, 
in broken columns, statues, and great hewn blocks of stone 
shouldering out of the sand, of others perhaps as large. 




CHAPTER XVII. 



KARNAK. 



^HE WEATHER is almost unsettled. There was actually 
a dash of rain against the cabin window last night — over 
before you could prepare an affidavit to the fact — and to- 
day is cold, more or less cloudy with a drop, only a drop, of 
rain occasionally. Besides, the wind is in the south-west and the 
sand flies. We cannot sail, and decide to visit Karnak, in spite 
of the entreaty of the hand-book to leave this, as the crown of 
all sight-seeing, until we have climbed up to its greatness over 
all the lesser ruins. 

Perhaps this is wise ; but I think I should advise a friend to 
go at once to Karnak and outrageously astonish himself, while 
his mind is fresh, and before he becomes at all sated with ruins 
or familiar with other vast and exceedingly impressive edifices. 
They are certain to dull a little his impression of Karnak even. 

"Madam — " it is Abd-el-Atti who comes in, rubbing his 
hands — "your carriage stops the way." 

" Carriage .'' " 

'• Yes, ma'am, I just make him." 

The carriage was an arm-chair slung between two pushing- 
poles ; between each end of them was harnessed a surly dimin- 
utive donkey who seemed to feel his degradation. Each donkey 
required a driver; Ahmed, v/ith his sleeves rolled up and armed 
with a big club, walked beside, to steady the swaying chair, 
and to beat the boys when their donkeys took a fancy to lie 
down ; and a cloud of interested Arabs hovered about it, running 
with it, adding to the noise, dust, and picturesqueness of our 

cavalcade. 

212 



THE WONDERFUL RUINS OF KARNAK. 213 

On the outskirts of the mud-cabins we pass through the 
weekly market, a motley assemblage of country-folks and 
produce, camels, donkeys, and sheep. It is close by the 
Ghawazee quarter, where is a colony of a hundred or more 
of these dancing-girls. They are always conspicuous among 
Egyptian women by their greater comeliness and gay apparel. 
They wear red and yellow gowns, many tinkling ornaments of 
silver and gold, and their eyes are heavily darkened with kohl. 
I don't know what it is in this kohl, that it gives woman such a 
wicked and dangerous aspect. They come out to ask for 
backsheesh in a brazen but probably intended to be a seductive 
manner; they are bold, but some of them rather well-looking. 
They claim to be an unmixed race of ancient lineage ; but I 
suspect their blood is no purer than their morals. There is not 
much in Egypt that is not hopelessly mixed. 

Of the mile-and-a-half avenue of Sphinxes that once connected 
Luxor with Karnak, we see no trace until we are near the latter. 
The country is open and beautiful with green wheat, palms, and 
sycamores. Great Karnak does not show itself until we are 
close upon it ; its vast extent is hidden by the remains of the 
wall of circuit, by the exterior temples and pylons. It is not until 
we have passed beyond the great — but called small — temple of 
Rameses III. , at the north entrance, and climbed the pyramidal 
tower to the west of the Great Hall, that we begin to compre- 
hend the magnitude of these ruins, and that only days of wan- 
dering over them and of study would give us their gigantic plan. 

Karnak, is not a temple, but a city rather; a city of temples, 
palaces, obelisks, colossal statues, It is, like a city, a growth of 
many centuries. It is not a conception or the execution of a 
purpose; it is the not always harmonious accretion of time and 
wealth and vanity. Of the slowness of its growth some idea 
may be gained from the fact that the hieroglyphics on one face 
of one of its obelisks were cut two hundred and fifty years after 
those on the opposite face. So long ago were both chiseled, 
however, they are alike venerable to us. I shouldn't lose my 
temper with a man who differed with me only a thousand years 
about the date of any event in Egypt. 



21-i THE GREAT HALL OF SETHI. 

They were working at this mass of edifices, sacred or profane, 
all the way from Osirtasen I. down to Alexander II.; that is 
from about 3064 B. c. according to Mariette (Bunsen, 2781, 
Wilkinson, 2080, — it doesn't matter) to only a short time before 
our era. There was a modest beginning in the plain but chaste 
temple of Osirtasen; but each king sought to outdo his prede- 
cessor until Sethi I. forever distanced rivalry in building the 
Great Hall. And after him it is useless for anyone else to attempt 
greatness by piling up stones. The length of the temples, pylons, 
and obelisks, en suite from west to east, is 11 80 feet; but there 
are other outlying and gigantic ruins ; I suppose it is fully a mile 
and a half round the wall of circuit. 

There is nothing in the world of architecture like the Great 
Hall; nothing so massive, so surprising, and, for me, at least, so 
crushingly oppressive. What monstrous columns ! And how 
thickly they are crowded together! Their array is always 
compared to a forest. The comparison is apt in some respects; 
but how free, uplifting is a forest, how it expands into the blue 
air, and lifts the soul with it. A piece of architecture is to be 
judged, I suppose, by the effect it produces. It is not simply 
that this hall is pagan in its impression; it misses the highest 
architectural effect by reason of its unrelieved heaviness. It is 
wonderful ; it was a prodigious achievement to build so many 
big columns. 

The setting of enormous columns so close together that you can 
only see a few of them at one point of view is the architecture 
of the Great Hall. Upon these, big stones are put for a roof. 
There is no reason why this might not have been repeated over 
an acre of ground. Neither from within nor from without can 
you see the extent of the hall.* The best view of it is down the 
center aisle, formed by the largest columns; and as these have 



*The Great Hall measures one hundred and seventy feet by three hundred 
and twenty-nine ; in this space stand one hundred and thirty-four columns ; 
twelve of these, forming the central avenue of one hundred and seventy feet, 
are sixty-two feet high, without plinth and abacus, and eleven feet six inches 
in diameter ; the other one hundred and twenty-two columns are forty-two 
feet five inches in height and about nine feet in diameter. The great columns 
stand only fifteen or sixteen feet apart. 



THE LARGEST OBELISK IN THE WORLD. 215 

height as well as bulk, and the sky is now seen above them, the 
effect is of the highest majesty. This hall was dimly lighted by 
windows in the clerestory, the frames of which exhibit a 
freedom of device and grace of carving worthy of a Gothic 
cathedral. These columns, all richly sculptured, are laid up in 
blocks of stone of half the diameter, the joints broken. If the 
Egyptians had dared to use the arch, the principle of which they 
knew, in this building, so that the columns could have stood 
wide apart and still upheld the roof, the sight of the interior 
would have been almost too much for the human mind. The 
spectator would have been exalted, not crushed by it. 

Not far off is the obelisk which Amunoo-het erected to the 
memory of her father. I am not sure but it will stand long 
after The Hall of Sethi is a mass of ruins; for already is the 
water sapping the foundations' of the latter, some of the columns 
lean like reeling drunken men, and one day, with crash after 
crash, these giants will totter, and the blocks of stone of which 
they are built M^ill make another of those shapeless heaps to 
which sooner or later our solidest works come. The red 
granite shaft of the faithful daughter lifts itself ninety-two 
feet into the air, and is the most beautiful as it is the largest 
obelisk ever raised. 

The sanctuary of red granite was once very rich and 
beautiful; the high polish of its walls and the remains of its 
exquisite carving, no less than the colors that still remain, 
attest that. The sanctuary is a heap of ruins, thanks to that 
ancient Shaker, Cambyses, but the sculptures in one of the 
chambers are the most beautiful we have seen ; the colors, 
red, blue, and green are still brilliant, the ceiling is spangled 
with stars on a blue firmament. Considering the hardness of 
this beautiful syenite and the difficulty of working it, I think 
this is the most admirable piece of work in Thebes. 

It may be said of some of the sculptures here, especially of 
the very spirited designs and intelligent execution of those of 
the Great Hall, that they are superior to those on the other side 
of the river. And yet there is endless theological reiteration 
here ; there are dreary miles of the same gods in the same 



216 A CITY OF TEMPLES AND PALACES. 

attitudes ; and you cannot call all of thena respectable gods. 
The longer the religion endured the more conventional and 
repetitious its representations became. The sculptors came 
to have a traditional habit of doing certain scenes and groups 
in a certain way; and the want of life and faith in them 
becomes very evident in the sculptures of the Ptolemaic period. 

In this vast area you may spend days and not exhaust the 
objects worth examination. On one of our last visits we 
found near the sacred lake very striking colossal statues 
which we had never seen before. 

When this city of temples and palaces, the favorite royal 
residence, was entire and connected with Luxor by the 
avenue of sphinxes, and the great edifices and statues on the 
west side of the river were standing, this broad basin of the 
Nile, enclosed by the circle of rose-colored limestone moun- 
tains, which were themselves perforated with vast tombs, 
must have been what its splendid fame reports, when it could 
send to war twenty thousand chariots. But, I wonder whether 
the city, aside from its conspicuous temples and attached 
palaces, was one of mud-hovels, like those of most peoples of 
antiquity, and of the modern Egyptians. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



ASCENDING THE RIVER. 



WE resume our voyage on the sixth of January, but we 
leave a hostage at Luxor as we did at Asioot. This is 
a sailor who became drunk and turbulent last night on 
laasheesh, and was sent to the governor. 

We found him this morning with a heavy chain round his 
neck and tied to a stake in one corner of the court-yard of the 
house where the governor has his office. I think he might have 
pulled up the stake and run away; but I believe it is not con- 
sidered right here for a prisoner to escape. The common people 
are so subdued that they wilt, when authority puts its heavy hand 
on them. Near the sailor was a mud-kennel into which he 
■could crawl if he liked. This is the jail of Luxor. Justice is 
summary here. This sailor is confined without judge or jury 
and will be kept till he refunds his advance wages, since he 
was discharged from the boat as a dangerous man. 

The sailors dread the lock-up, for they may be forced into the 
army as the only way out of it ; they would much prefer the 
stick. They are used to the stick; four thousand years of 
Egyptians have been accustomed to the stick. A beating they 
do not mind much, or at least are not humiliated by it as another 
race would be. But neither the prospect of the jail nor the stick 
will wean them from hasheesh, which is the curse of Egypt. 

We spread our sails to a light breeze and depart in company 
with two other dahabeehs, one English (the Philce) and one 
American {\\i^Dongola). Africa and weeks of leisure and sunny 
skies are before us. We loiter along in company, in friendly 

217 



218 THE ''PHILM" AND THE "DONGOLA" 



company one may say, now passing a boat and now falling 
behind, like three ducks coquetting in a swift current. We are 
none of us in a hurry, we are indifferent to progress, our minds 
are .calm and our worst passions not excited. We do not appear 
to be going rapidly, I sometimes doubt if we are going forward 
at all, but it gradually becomes apparent that we are in the midst 
of a race ! 

Everything in this world is relative. I can imagine a fearfulljr 
exciting match of mud-turtles on a straight track. Think of 
the agony, prolonged, that the owner of the slow turtle would 
suffer ! We are evidently in for it ; and a race like this, that 
lasts all day, will tire out the hardiest sportsman. 

The Eip Van Winkle is the largest boat and happens to have 
the lead ; but the Fhilce, a very graceful, gay boat, is crawling 
up to us ; the Dongola also seems to feel a breeze that we have 
not. We want a strong wind — the Rip Van Winkle does not 
wake up in a mild air. As we desire, it freshens a little, the big 
sail swells, and the ripples are louder at the bow. Unfortunately 
there is breeze enough for three, and the other vessels shake 
themselves out like ducks about to fly. It is a pretty sight just 
now ; the spread of three great bird-wing sails, the long gaily- 
painted cabins and decks, the sweeping yards and the national 
colors and variegated streamers flying ! 

They are gaining on us; the Philce gets inside, and taking our 
wind, for a moment, creeps ahead, and attempts to sheer across 
our bow to force us into the swifter current; the Dongola sails 
in at the same time, and a jam and collision appear inevitable. 
A storm of language bursts out of each boat ; men run to stern 
and bow, to ward off intruders or to disengage an entangled spar ; 
all the crew, sailors, reises, and dragomans are in the most 
active vociferation. But the Philce sails out of the coil, the 
Dongola draws ahead at the risk of going into the bank, and 
our crew seize the punt-poles and have active work to prevent 
going fast on a sand-bar to leeward. 

But the prosperity of the wicked is short. The wind falls 
flat. Instantly our men are tumbling into the water and carrying 
the rope ashore to track The lines are all out, and the men 



TAKING THE LEAD. 219 

are attempting to haul us round a deep bend. The steersmen 
keep the head of the vessels off shore, and the strain on the 
trackers is tremendous. The cables flop along the bank and 
scrape over the shadoofs, raking down a stake now and then, 
and bring out from their holes the half-naked, protesting pro- 
prietors, who get angry and gesticulate, — as if they had anything 
to do with our race ! 

The men cannot hold the cable any longer ; one by one they 
are forced to let go, at the risk of being drawn down the crum- 
bling bank, and the cable splashes into the water. The sailors 
run ahead and come down upon a sand-spit ; there are puffs of 
wind in our sail, and we appear to have made a point, when the 
men wade on board and haul in the rope. The Dongola is close 
upon us ; the Philce. has lost by keeping too far out in the cur- 
rent. Oh, for a wind ! 

Instead of a wind, there is a bland smile in the quiet sky. 
Why, O children, do you hasten .? Have not Nile sailors been 
doing this for four thousand years .'' The boats begin to yaw 
about. Poles are got out. We are all in danger of going aground ; 
we are all striving to get the inside track at yonder point ; we 
are in danger of collision ; we are most of all in danger of 
being left behind. The crews are crazy with excitement ; as 
they hurriedly walk the deck, rapidly shifting their poles in the 
shallow water, calling upon Yalesah in quicker and quicker 
respirations, " Ha Yalesah," " Ha Yalesah," as they run to 
change the sail at the least indication of a stray breeze, as they 
see first one dahabeeh and then the other crawling ahead, the 
contest assumes a serious aspect, and their cries are stronger and 
more barbaric. 

The Philcz gets inside again and takes the bank. We are all 
tracking, when we come to the point, beyond which is a deep 
bay. If we had wind we should sail straight across; the distance 
round the bay is much greater — but then we can track along the 
bank ; there is deep water close under the bank and there is 
deep water in mid-river. The PMIcb stands away into the river, 
barely holding its own in the light zephyr. The Dongola tries 
to follow the Philce, but swings round, and her crew take to the 



^20 EXCITING RACE— EIGHT MILES A DA V. 

poles. Our plan appears to be more brilliant. Our men take 
the cable out upon a sand-bank in the stream and attempt to tow 
us along the center channel. All goes well. We gain on the 
Philcz and pass it. We see the Dongola behind, struggling in the 
shallows. But the sand-bank is a failure. The men begin to go 
from it into deeper water ; it is up to their knees, it reaches our 
" drawers," which we bought for the crew ; it comes to the waist ; 
their shoulders are going under. It is useless; the cable is let 
go, and the men rush back to the sand-bar. There they are. 
Our cable is trailing down-stream; we have lost our crew, and 
the wind is just coming up. While we are sending the sandal to 
rescue our mariners, the Fhilce sails away, and the Dongola shows 
lier stern. 

The travelers on the three boats, during all this contest, are sit- 
ting on the warm, sunny decks, with a pretence of books, opera- 
glasses in hand; apparently regarding the scene with indifference, 
but no doUbt, underneath this mask, longing to "lick" the other 
toats. 

After all, we come to Erment (which is eight miles from Luxor) 
not far apart. The race is not to the swift. There is no swift 
on the Nile. But I do not know how there could be a more 
exciting race of eight miles a day ! 

At Erment is a large sugar-factory belonging to the Khedive ; 
and a governor lives here in a big house and harem. The house 
has an extensive garden laid out by old Mohammed Ali, and a 
plantation of oranges, Yusef Effendis, apples, apricots, peaches, 
lemons, pomegranates, and limes. The plantation shows that 
fruit will grow on the Upper Nile, if one will take the trouble to 
set out and water the trees. But we see none. The high Nile 
here last September so completely washed out the garden that 
we can get neither flowers nor vegetables. And some people 
like the rapidly-grown watery vegetables that grow along the 
Nile. 

Our dragoman wanted some of the good, unrefined loaf-sugar 
from the factory here, and I went with him to see how business 
is transacted. We had difficulty in finding any office or place of 
sale about the establishment. 



INSIDE THE KHEDIVE'S SUGAR-FACTORY. 221 

But a good-natured dwarf, who seemed to spring out of the- 
ground on our landing, led us through courts and amid dilapida- 
ted warehouses to a gate, in which sat an Arab in mixed costume. 
Within the gate hung a pair of steelyards, and on one side was a 
bench. The gate, the man, the steelyards and the bench con- 
stituted an office. Beyond was an avenue, having low enclosures 
on each side, that with broken pillars and walls of brick looked 
very much like Pompeii ; in a shallow bin was a great heap of 
barley, thrashed, and safe and dry in the open air. 

The indifferent man in the gate sent for a slow boy, who, in 
his own time, came, bearing a key, a stick an inch square and a 
foot long, with four short iron spikes stuck in one side near the 
end. He led us up a dirty brick stairway outside a building, 
and inserting the key in a wooden lock to match (both lock and 
key are unchanged since the Pharaohs) let us into a long, low 
room, like an old sail-loft full of dust, packages of sugar-paper 
and old account-books. When the shutters were opened we 
found at one end a few papers of sugar, which we bought, and 
our own sailor carried down to the steelyards. The indifferent: 
man condescended to weigh the sugar, and took the pay : but 
he lazily handed the money to the boy, who sauntered off with. 
it. Naturally, you wouldn't trust that boy ; but there was an 
indescribable sense of the worthlessness of time and of money 
and of all trade, about this transaction, that precluded the possi- 
bility of the smartness of theft. 

The next day the race is resumed, with little wind and a good 
deal of tracking ; we pass the JDongola and are neck-and-neck 
with the -P//;7<« till afternoon, when we bid her good-bye; and 
yet not with unmixed pleasure. 

It is a pleasure to pass a boat and leave her toiling after; 
but the pleasure only lasts while she is in sight. If I had my 
way, we should constantly overhaul boats and pass them, and 
so go up the stream in continual triumph. It is only the cold 
consciousness of duty performed that sustains us, when we 
have no spectators of our progress. 

We go on serenely. Hailing a crossing ferry-boat, loaded 
with squatting, turbaned tatterdemalion Arabs, the dragoman 
cries, '' Salaam 'aleykoom.'^ 



222 SETTING FIRE TO A TOWN. 

The reply is, " Salaam ; peace be with you ; may God meet 
you in the way; may God receive you to himself." The 
Old Testament style. 

While we were loitering along by Mutaneh — where there is 
a sugar-factory, and an irrigating steam-pump — trying to 
count the string of camels, hundreds of them moving along 
the bank against the sunset — camels that bring the cane to 
be ground — and our crew were eating supper, I am sorry to 
say that the Philce. poled ahead of us, and went on to Esneh. 
But something happened at Esneh. 

It was dark when we arrived at that prosperous town, and, 
of course, Abd-el-Atti, who would like to have us go blazing 
through Egypt like Cambyses, sent up a rocket. Its fiery 
serpent tore the black night above us, exploded in a hundred 
colored stars, and then dropped its stick into the water. 
Splendid rockets ! The only decent rockets to be had in 
Egypt are those made by the government ; and Abd-el-Atti 
was the only dragoman who had been thoughtful enough to 
make interest with the authorities and procure government 
rockets. Hence our proud position on the river. We had no 
firman, and the Khedive did not pay our expenses, but the 
Viceroy himself couldn't out-rocket us. 

As soon as we had come to shore and tied up, an operation 
taking some time in the darkness, we had a visit from the 
governor, a friend of our dragoman ; but this visit was urgent 
and scarcely friendly. An attempt had been made to set the 
town on fire! A rocket from an arriving boat had been 
thrown into the town, set fire to the straw on top of one of 
the houses and — 

"Did it spread?" 

*' No, but it might. Allah be praised, it was put out. But 
the town might have been burned down. What a way is this, 
to go along the Nile firing the towns at night .^" 

" 'Twasn't our rocket. Ours exploded in the air and fell 
into the river. Did the other boat, did the PJiUcb, send up a 
rocket when she arrived .'' " 

"Yes. There was another rocket." 



ABD-EL-A TTI IN A "FIX." 223 

"Dat's it, dat's it," says Abd-el-Atti. " Why you no go on 
board the Philce and not come here?" And then he added to 
us, as if struck by a new idea, " Where the Philce get dat 
rocket? I think he have no rocket before. Not send any up 
Christmas in Asioot, not send any up in Luxor. I think 
these very strange. Not so? " 

" What kind of rocket was it, that burnt the town ? " we ask 
the governor. 

" I have it." The governor ran to the cabin door and 
called. A servant brought in the exploded missile. It was a 
large-sized rocket, like our own ; twice as large as the rockets 
that are not made by the government, and which travelers 
usually carry. 

" Seems like our stick," cries Abd-el-Atti, getting excited. 
He examined the sheath with great care. We all gathered 
round the cabin lamp to look at the fatal barrel. It had a 
mark on it, something in Arabic. Abd-el-Atti turned it 
sideways and upside down, in an effort to get at the meaning 
of the writing. 

"That is government; make 'em by the government; no 
doubt," he says, standing off and becoming solemn. " Dat 
rocket been stole. Looks like our rocket." 

Abd-el-Atti flies out, and there is a commotion outside. 
** Who has been stealing rockets and sejl 'em to that drago- 
man? Boxes are opened. Rockets are brought in and 
compared. The exploded one has the same mark as ours, it 
is the same size. 

A new anxiety dawns upon Abd-el-Atti. What if the 
Philcs has government rockets ? Our distinction is then gone. 
No. It can't be, " I know what every dragoman do in 
Cairo. He can't get dese rocket. Nobody get 'em dis year 
'cept us." Abd-el-Atti is for probing the affair to the bottom. 
Perhaps the hasheesh-eating sailor we discharged at Luxor 
stole some of our rockets and sold them, and thus they came 
into possession of the dragoman of the Phila. 

The young governor, however,' has had enough of it. He 
begins to see a great deal of vexation to himself, and a row 



224 ^^^0 STOLE THE ROCKETS? 

with an English and an American dahabeeh and with natives 
besides. Let it drop, he says. The governor sits on the divan 
smoking a cigar. He is accompanied by a Greek friend, a 
merchant of the place. When the governor's cigar goes out, 
in his distraction, the Greek takes it, and re-lights it, puffing 
it till it is well enflamed, and then handing it again to the 
governor. This is a custom of the East. The servant often. 
" starts " the cigarette for his master. 

" Oh, let it go," says the governor, appealing to us : " It is 
finish now. It was no damage done." 

"But it might," cries Abd-el-Atti, "it might burn the 
town," taking now the role v^hich the governor had dropped. 

" But you are not to blame. It is not you have done it." 

" Then why you come to me, why you come to us wid de 
rocket 1 Why you no go to the Fhilce ? Yes. You know 
that we, nobody else on the river got government rockets. 
This government rocket — look the mark," seizing the explo- 
ded one and a new one, and bringing the ends of both so 
near the lamp that we all fear an explosion. " There is 
something underhands here." 

"But it's all right now." 

"How it's all right.'' Story go back to Cairo; J^t'p Van 
Winkle been gone set fire to Esneh. Whose rockets ? Gov- 
ernment rockets. Nobody have government rockets 'cept 
Abd-el-Atti." 

A terrific confab goes on in the cabin for nearly an hour 
between the dragoman, the governor, and the Greek ; a lively 
entertainment and exhibition of character which we have no 
desire to curtail. The governor is a young, bright, presentable 
fellow, in Frank dress, who for liveliness of talk and gesture 
would pass for an Italian. 

When the governor has departed, our reis comes in and 
presents us a high-toned "certificate" from the gentleman on 
board the Philm: — he has learned from our reis, steersman and 
some sailors (who are in a panic) that they are all to be hauled 
before the governor and punished on a charge of stealing rockets 
and selling them to his dragoman. He certifies that he bought 



^V£ VISIT A "MAN-OF-WAR." 225 

his own rockets in the Mooskee ; that his dragoman was with 
him when he bought them; and that our men are innocent. 
The certificate further certifies that our conduct toward our 
crew is unjustifiable and an unheard of cruelty ! 

Here was a casus belli/ Foreign powers had intervened. 
The right of search and seizure was again asserted ; the war of 
1812 was about to be renewed. Our cruelty unheard of? We 
should think so. All the rest of it was unheard of also. We 
hadn't the slightest intention of punishing anybody or hauling 
anybody before the governor. When Abd-el-Atti hears the 
certificate, he shakes his head : — 

"Buy 'em like this in the Mooskee."* Not be. Not find 
government rockets in any shop in the Mooskee. Something 
underhands by that dragoman ! " 

Not wishing to light the flames of war in Africa, we imme- 
diately took servants and lanterns and called on the English 
Man-of-War. The Man-of-War had gone to bed. It was nine 
o'clock. 

"What for he send a certificate and go to bed.? " Abd-el-Atti 
wants to know. "I not like the looks of it." He began to be 
suspicious of all the world. 

In the morning the gentleman returned our call. He did not 
know or care whose rocket set fire to the town. Couldn't hurt 
these towns much to burn them ; small loss if all were burned. 
The governor had called on him to say that no damage was 
done. Our dragoman had, however, no right to accuse his of 
buying stolen rockets. His were bought in Cairo, etc., etc. 
And the matter dropped amicably and without bloodshed. But 
Abd-el-Atti's suspicions widened as he thought it over : — 

" What for de Governor come to me .'* What for he not go to 
dat boat what fire de rocket ? What for de Governor come been 
call on me wid a rocket? The Governor never come been call 
on me wid a rocket before! " 

It is customary for all boats which are going above the first 

cataract to stop at Esneh twenty-four hours to bake bread for 

the crew ; frequently they are detained longer, for the wheat has 

to be bought, ground in one of the little ox-power mills, mixed 

15 



226 STRIKING CONTRASTS OF ORIENTAL LIFE. 

and baked ; and the crew hire a mill and oven for the time being, 
and perform the labor. We had sent sailors ahead to bake the 
bread, and it was ready in the morning; but we stayed over, 
according to immemorial custom. The sailors are entitled to a 
holiday, and they like to take it where there are plenty of 
coffee-houses and a large colony of Ghawazee girls. 

Esneh is nOt a bad specimen of an Egyptian town. There is 
a temple here, of which only the magnificent portico has been 
excavated; the remainder lies under the town. We descend 
some thirty feet to get to the floor of the portico, — ;to such a 
depth has it been covered. And it is a modern temple, after all, 
of the period of the Roman occupation. We find here the 
cartouches of the Csesars. The columns are elegant and covered 
with very good sculpture ; each of the twenty-five has a different 
capital, and some are developed into a hint of the Corinthian 
and the composite. The rigid constraints of the Egyptian art 
are beginning to give way. 

The work in the period of the Romans differs much from the 
ancient; it is less simple, more ornamented and debased. The 
hieroglyphics are not so carefully and nicely cut. The figures 
are not so free in drawing, and not so good as the old, except 
that they show more anatomical knowledge, and begin to exhibit 
a little thought of perspective. The later artists attempt to 
work out more details in the figure, to show muscles and various 
members in more particularity. Some of the forms and faces 
have much beauty, but most of them declare a decline of art, or 
perhaps an attempt to reconcile the old style with new know- 
ledge, and consequent failure. 

We called on the governor. He was absent at the mosque, 
but his servant gave us coffee. The Oriental magnificence of 
the gubernatorial residence would impress the most faithless 
traveler. The entrance was through a yard that would be a fair 
hen-yard (for common fowl) at home, and the small apartment 
into which we were shown might serve for a stable ; but it had a 
divan, some carpets and chairs, and three small windows. Its 
roof was flat, made of rough split palm-trees covered with palm- 
leaves. The governor's lady lives somewhere in the rear of this 



THE ''KADI'' IN HIS COURT OF JUSTICE. 227 

apartment of the ruler, in a low mud-house, of which we saw the 
outside only. 

Passing near the government house, we stopped in to see the 
new levy of soldiers, which amounts to some four hundred from 
this province. Men are taken between the ages of eighteen and 
twenty-four, and although less than three per cent, of those 
liable are seized, the draft makes a tremendous excitement all 
along the river. In some places the bazaars are closed and 
there is a general panic as if pestilence had broken out. 

Outside the government house, and by the river bank, are 
women, squatting in the sand, black figures of woe and dirt, 
bewailing their relations taken away. In one mud-hovel there 
is so much howling and vocal grief that we think at first a 
funeral is in progress. We are permitted to look into the 
lock-up where the recruits are detained waiting transportation 
down the river, A hundred or two fellaheen-, of the average as 
to nakedness and squalor of raiment, are crowded into a long 
room with a dirt floor, and among them are many with heavy 
chains on their ankles. These latter are murderers and thieves, 
awaiting trial or further punishment. It is in fact the jail, and 
the soldiers are forced into this companionship until their 
departure. One would say this is a bad nursery for patriots. 

The court of justice is in the anteroom of this prison; and 
the two ought to be near together. The Kadi, or judge, sits 
cross-legged on the ground, and others squat around him, 
among them a scribe. When we enter, we are given seats on a 
mat near the judge, and offered coffee and pipes. This is 
something like a court of justice, sociable and friendly. It is 
impossible to tell who is prisoner, who are witnesses, and who 
are spectators. All are talking together, the prisoner (who is 
pointed out) louder than any other, the spectators all joining in 
with the witnesses. The prisoner is allowed to "talk back," 
which must be a satisfaction to him. When the hubbub sub- 
sides, the judge pronounces sentence; and probably he does as 
well as an ordinary jury. 

The remainder of this town is not sightly. In fact I do not 
suppose that six thousand people could live in one dirtier, 



228 W^A T WE SAW AT ASSOUAN. 

dustier, of more wretched houses ; rows of unclean, shriveled 
women, with unclean babies, their eyes plastered with flies, 
sitting along the lanes called streets ; plenty of men and boys 
in no better case as to clothing; but the men are physically- 
superior to the women. In fact we see no comely women 
except the Ghawazees. Upon the provisions, the grain, the 
sweet-cakes exposed for sale on the ground, flies settle so that 
all look black. 

Not more palaces and sugar-mills, O ! Khedive, will save 
this Egypt, but some plan that will lift these women out of 
dirt and ignorance ! 

Our next run is to Assouan. Let us sketch it rapidly, and 
indicate by a touch the panorama it unrolled for us. 

We are under way at daylight, leaving our two companions 
of the race asleep. We go on with a good wind, and by 
lovely sloping banks of green ; banks that have occasionally 
a New England-river aspect ; but palm-trees are behind them, 
and beyond are uneven mountain ranges, the crumbling 
limestone of which is so rosy in the sun. The wind freshens, 
and we spin along five miles an hour. The other boats have 
started, but they have a stern chase, and we lose them round 
a bend. 

The atmosphere is delicious, a little under a summer heat, 
so that it is pleasant to sit in the sun; we seem to fly, with 
our great wings of sails, by the lovely shores. An idle man 
could desire nothing more. The crew are cutting up the 
bread baked yesterday and spreading it on the deck to dry. 
They prefer this to bread made of bolted wheat ; and it would 
be very good, if it were not heavy and sour, and dirty to look 
at, and somewhat gritty to the teeth. 

In the afternoon we pass the new, the Roman, and the old 
town of El Kab, back of which are the famous grottoes of 
Eilethyas with their pictures of domestic and agricultural 
life. We go on famously, leaving Edfoo behind, to the tune 
of five miles an hour ; and, later, we can distinguish the top 
of the sail of the Philae at least ten miles behind. Before 
dark we are abreast of the sandstone quarries of Silsilis, the 



A GALE ON THE WATER. 229 

most wonderful in the world, and the river is swift, narrower 
and may be rocky. We have accomplished fifty-seven miles 
since morning, and wishing to make a day's run that shall 
astonish Egypt, we keep on in the dark. The wind increases, 
and in the midst of our career we go aground. We tug and 
push and splash, however, get off the sand, and scud along 
again. In a few moments something happens. There is a 
thump and a lurch, and bedlam breaks loose on deck. 

We have gone hard on the sand. The wind is blowing 
almost a gale, and in the shadow of these hills the night is 
black. Our calm steersman lets the boat swing right about, 
facing down-stream, the sail jibes, and we are in great peril of 
upsetting, or carrying away yard, mast and all. The hubbub 
is something indescribable. The sailors are ordered aloft to 
take in the sail. They fear to do it. To venture out upon 
that long slender yard, which is foul and threatens to snap 
every moment, the wind whipping the loose sail, isiuo easy or 
safe task. The yelling that ensues would astonish the regular 
service. Reis and sailors are all screaming together, and 
above all can be heard the storming of the dragoman, who is 
most alive to the danger, his voice broken with excitement 
and passion. The crew are crouching about the mast, in 
terror, calling upon Mohammed. The reis is muttering to 
the Prophet, in the midst of his entreaty. Abd-el-Atti is 
rapidly telling his beads, while he raves. At last Ahmed 
springs up the rigging, and the others, induced by shame and 
the butt-end of a hand-spike, follow him, and are driven 
out along the shaking yard. Amid intense anxiety and with 
extreme difficulty, the sail is furled and we lie there, aground, 
with an anchor out, the wind blowing hard and the waves 
pounding us, as if we were making head against a gale at sea. 
A dark and wildish night it is, and a lonesome place, the 
rocky shores dimly seen ; but there is starlight. We should 
prefer to be tied to the bank, sheltered from the wind rather 
than lie swinging and pounding here. However, it shows us 
the Nile in a new aspect. And another good comes out of 
the adventure. Ahmed, who saved the boat, gets a new suit 



230 JiUINS OF KOM OMBOS. 

of clothes. Nobody in Egypt needed one more. A suit of 
clothes is a blue cotton gown. 

The following morning (Sunday) is cold, but we are off 
early as if nothing had happened, and run rapidly against the 
current — or the current against us, which produces the impres- 
sion of going fast. The river is narrower, the mountains 
come closer to the shores, and there is, on either side, only a 
scant strip of vegetation. Egypt, along here, is really only 
three or four rods wide. The desert sands drift down to the 
very shores, and the desert hills, broken, jagged, are savage 
walls of enclosure. 

The Nile no doubt once rose annually and covered these now 
bleached wastes, and made them fruitful. But that was long 
ago. At Silsilis, below here, where the great quarries are, there 
was once a rocky barrier, probably a fall, which set the Nile 
back, raising its level from here to Assouan. In some convul- 
sion this was carried away. When .? There is some evidence 
on this point at hand. By ten o'clock we have rounded a long 
bend, and come to the temples of Kom Ombos, their great 
columns conspicuous on a hill close to the river. They are 
rather fine structures, for the Ptolemies. One of them stands 
upon foundations of an ancient edifice built by Thothmes I. 
(eighteenth dynasty) ; and these foundations rests upon alluvial 
deposit. Consequently the lowering of the Nile above Silsilis, 
probably by breaking through the rock-dam there, was before 
the time of Thothmes I. The Nile has never risen to the temple 
site since. These striking ruins are, however, destined to be 
swept away ; opposite the bend where they stand a large sand- 
island is forming, and every hour the soil is washing from 
under them. Upon this sand-island this morning are flocks of 
birds, sunning themselves, and bevies of sand-grouse take wing 
at our approach. A crocodile also lifts his shoulders and lunges 
into the water, when we get near enough to see his ugly scales 
with the glass. 

As we pass the desolate Kom Ombos, a solitary figure emerges 
from the ruins and comes down the slope of the sand-hill, with 
turban flowing, ragged cotton robe, and a long staff; he runs along 



GREA T PREPARA TIONS. 23^ 



the sandy shore and then turns away into the desert, like a 
fleeing Cain, probably with no idea that it is Sunday, and that 
the "first bell" is about to ring in Christian countries. 

The morning air is a little too sharp for idle comfort, although 
we can sit in the sun on deck and read. This west wind coming 
from the mountains of the desert brings always cold weather, 
even in Nubia. 

Above Kom Ombos we come to a little village in a palm-grove 
■ — a scene out of the depths of Africa, — such as you have often 
seen in pictures — which is the theatre of an extraordinary com- 
motion. There is enacted before us in dumb-show something like 
a pantomime in a play-house ; but this is even more remote and 
enigmatical than that, and has in it all the elements of a picture 
of savagery. In the interior of Africa are they not all children, 
and do they not spend their time in petty quarreling and fight- 
ing .? 

On the beach below the village is moored a trading vessel, 
loaded with ivory, cinnamon, and gum-arabic, and manned by 
Nubians, black as coals. People are climbing into this boat and 
jumping out of it, splashing in the water, in a state of great 
excitement; people are running along the shore, shouting and 
gesticulating wildly, flourishing long staves ; parties are chasing 
each other, and whacking their sticks together; and a black 
fellow, in a black gown and while shoes, is chasing others with 
an uplifted drawn sword. It looks like war or revolution, pic- 
turesque war in the bright sun on the yellow sand, with all 
attention to disposition of raiment and color and striking 
attitudes. There are hurryings to and fro, incessant clamors 
of noise and shoutings and blows of cudgels ; some are running 
away, and some are climbing into palm trees, but we notice that ' 
no one is hit by cane or sword. Neither is anybody taken into 
custody, though there is a great show of arresting somebody. 
It is a very animated encounter, and I am glad that we do not 
understand it. 

Sakiyas increase in number along the bank, taking the place 
of the shadoof, and we are never out of hearing of their doleful 
songs. Labor here is not hurried. I saw five men digging a 



232 A LAND OF ETERNAL LEISURE. 

« 
well in the bank — into which the Sakiya buckets dip ; that is, 
there were four, stripped, coal-black slaves from Soudan superin- 
tended by an Arab. One man was picking up the dirt with a 
pick-axe hoe. Three others were scraping out the dirt with a 
contrivance that would make a lazy man laugh ; — one fellow held 
the long handle of a small scraper, fastened on like a shovel ; to 
this upright scraper two ropes were attached which the two 
others pulled, indolently, thus gradually scraping the dirt out of 
the hole a spoonful at a time. One man with a shovel would 
have thrown it out four times as fast. But why should it be 
thrown out in a hurry .? Must we always intrude our haste into 
this land of eternal leisure ? 

By afternoon, the wind falls, and we loiter along. The desert 
apparently comes close to the river on each side. On one bank 
are a hundred camels, attended by a few men and boys, browsing 
on the coarse tufts of grass and the scraggy bushes ; the hard 
surroundings suit the ungainly animals. It is such pictures of 
a life, differing in all respects from ours, that we come to see. A 
little boat with a tattered sail is towed along close to the bank 
by half a dozen ragged Nubians, who sing a not unmelodious 
refrain as they walk and pull, — better at any rate than the groan 
of the sakiyas. 

There is everywhere a sort of Sabbath calm — a common thing 
here, no doubt, and of great antiquity; and yet, you would not 
say that the people are under any deep religious impression. 

As we advance the scenery becomes more Nubian, the river 
narrower and apparently smaller, when it should seem larger. 
This phenomenon of a river having more and more water as we 
ascend, is one that we cannot get accustomed to. The Nile 
having no affluents, loses, of course, continually by evaporation 
by canals, and the constant drain on it for irrigation. No wonder 
the Egyptians were moved by its mystery no less than by its 
beneficence to a sort of worship of it. 

The rocks are changing their character; granite begins to 
appear amid the limestone and sandstone. Along here, seven 
or eight miles below Assouan, there is no vegetation in sight from 
the boat, except strips of thrifty palm-trees, but there must be 



TOWARDS THE HEART OF AFRICA. 233 

soil beyond, for the sakiyas are always creaking. The charac- 
ter of the population is changed also ; above Kom Ombos it is 
mostly Nubian — who are to the Fellaheen as granite is to sand- 
stone. The Nubian hills lift up their pyramidal forms in the 
;South, and we seem to be getting into real Africa. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



PASSING THE CATARACT OF THE NILE. 

AT LAST, twenty-four days from Cairo, the Nubian hills 
are in sight, lifting themselves up in the south, and we 
appear to be getting into the real Africa — Africa, which 
still keeps its barbarous secret, and dribbles down this com- 
mercial highway the Nile, as it has for thousands of years, its 
gums and spices and drugs, its tusks and skins of wild 
animals, its rude weapons and its cunning work in silver, its 
slave-boys and slave-girls. These native boats that we meet, 
piled with strange and fragrant merchandise, rowed by antic 
crews of Nubians whose ebony bodies shine in the sun as 
they walk backward and forward at the long sweeps, chanting 
a weird, barbarous refrain, — what tropical freights are these 
for the imagination! 

At sunset we are in a lonesome place, the swift river flowing 
between narrow rocky shores, the height beyond Assouan 
grey in the distance, and vultures watching our passing boat 
from the high crumbling sandstone ledges. The night falls 
sweet and cool, the soft new moon is remote in the almost 
purple depths, the thickly strewn stars blaze like jewels, and 
we work slowly on at the rate of a mile an hour, with the 
slightest wind, amid the granite rocks of the channel. In this 
channel we are in the shadow of the old historical seat of 
empire, the island of Elephantine ; and, turning into the nar- 
row passage to the left, we announce by a rocket to the 
dahabeehs moored at Assouan the arrival of another inquisi- 
tive American. It is Sunday night. Our dragoman des- 

234 



THE ISLAND OF ELEPHANTINE. 235 

patches a messenger to the chief reis of the cataract, who lives 
at Philae, five miles above. A second one is sent in the 
course of the night; and a third meets the old patriarch on 
his way to our boat at sunrise. It is necessary to impress the 
Oriental mind with the importance of the travelers who have 
arrived at the gate of Nubia. 

The Nile voyager who moors his dahabeeh at the sand- 
bank, with the fleet of merchant boats, above Assouan, seems 
to be at the end of his journey. Travelers from the days of 
Herodotus even to this century have followed each other in 
saying that the roar of the cataract deafened the people for 
miles around. Civilization has tamed the rapids. Now there 
is neither sight nor sound of them here at Assouan. To the 
southward, the granite walls which no doubt once dammed 
the river have been broken through by some pre-historic 
convulsion that strewed the fragments about in grotesque 
confusion. The island of Elephantine, originally a long heap of 
granite, is thrown into the middle of the Nile, dividing it into 
two narrow streams. The southern end rises from the water, a 
bold mass of granite. Its surface is covered with ruins, or 
rather with the debris of many civilizations ; and into this mass 
and hills of brick, stone, pottery and ashes, Nubian women and 
children may be seen constantly poking, digging out coins, 
beads and images, to sell to the howadji. The north portion of 
the island is green with wheat; and it supports two or three 
mud-villages, which offer a good field for the tailor and the 
missionary. 

The passage through the east channel, between Assouan and 
Elephantine, is through walls of granite rocks; and southward 
at the end of it the view is bounded by a field of broken granite 
gradually rising, and apparently forbidding egress in that direc- 
tion. If the traveler comes for scenery, as some do, nothing 
could be wilder and at the same time more beautiful than these 
fantastically piled crags ; but considered as a navigable highway 
the river here is a failure. 

Early in the morning the head sheykh of the cataract comes 
on board, and the long confab which is preliminary to any 



236 UNCERTAIN HELP. 



undertaking, begins. There are always as many difificulties in 
the way of a trade or an arrangement as there are quills on a 
porcupine ; and a great part of the Egyptian bargaining is the 
preliminary plucking out of these quills. The cataracts are the 
hereditary property of the Nubian sheykhs and their tribes who 
live near them — belonging to them more completely than the 
rapids of the St. Lawrence to the Indian pilots; almost their 
whole livelihood comes from helping boats up and down the 
rapids, and their harvest season is the winter when the dahabeehs 
of the howadji require their assistance. They magnify the 
difficulties and dangers and make a mystery of their skill and 
knowledge. But, with true Orientalism, they appear to seek 
rather to lessen than to increase their business. They oppose 
intolerable delays to the traveler, keep him waiting at Assouan 
by a thousand excuses, and do all they can to drive him 
discouraged down the river. During this winter boats have 
been kept waiting two weeks on one frivolous excuse or another 
— the day was unlucky, or the wind was unfavorable, or some 
prince had the preference. Princes have been very much in the 
way this winter; the fact would seem to be that European 
princes are getting to run up the Nile in shoals, as plenty as 
shad in the Connecticut, more being hatched at home than 
Europe has employment for. 

Several thousand people, dwelling along the banks from 
Assouan to three or four miles above Philae, share in the profits 
of the passing boats; and although the sheykhs, and head reises 
(or captains) of the cataract get the elephant's share, every 
family receives something — it may be only a piastre or two — on 
each dahabeeh ; and the sheykhs draw from the villages as many 
men as are required for each passage. It usually takes two days 
for a boat to go up the cataract and not seldom they are kept 
in it three or four days, and sometimes a week. The first day 
the boat gets as far as the island of Sehayl, where it ties up and 
waits for the cataract people to gather next morning. They 
may take it into their heads not to gather, in which case the 
traveler can sun himself all day on the rocks, or hunt up the 
inscriptions which the Pharaohs, on their raids into Africa for 



AN ORIENTAL CONFAB. 237 

slaves and other luxuries, cut in the granite in their days of 
leisure three or four thousand years ago, before the world got its 
present impetus of hurry. Or they may come and pull the boat 
up a rapid or two, then declare they have not men enough for 
the final struggle, and leave it for another night in the roaring 
desolation. To put on force enough, and cables strong enough 
not to break, and promptly drag the boat through in one day 
would lessen the money- value of the achievement perhaps, in the 
mind of the owner of the boat. Nature has done a great deal 
to make the First Cataract an obstacle to navigation, but the 
wily Nubian could teach nature a lesson; at any rate he has 
never relinquished the key to the gates. He owns the cataracts 
as the Bedowees own the pyramids of Geezeh and the routes 
across the desert to Sinai and Petra. 

The aged reis comes on board ; and the preliminary ceremo- 
nies, exchange of compliments, religious and social, between 
him and our astute dragoman begin. Coffee is made, the reis's 
pipe is lighted, and the conversation is directed slowly to the 
ascent of the cataracts. The head reis is accompanied by two 
or three others of inferior dignity and by attendants who squat 
on the deck in attitudes of patient indifference. The world was 
not made in a day. The reis looks along the deck and says : 

"This boat is very large; it is too long to go up the cataract." 

There is no denying it. The dahabeeh is larger than almost 
any other on the river ; it is one hundred and twenty feet long. 
The dragoman says : 

" But you took up General McClellan's boat, and that is large." 

"Very true, Effendi; but why the howadji no come when 
Genel Clemen come, ten days ago .'' " 

"We chose to come now." 

" Such a long boat never went up. Why you no come two 
months ago when the river was high .? " This sort of talk 
goes on for half an hour. Then the other sheykh speaks : — 

" What is the use of talking all this stuff to Mohammed 
Abd-el-Atti Effendi; he knows all about it." 

" That is true. We will go." 

" Well, it is * finish '," says Abd-el-Atti. 



238 ARTICLES OF VIRTU. 



When the long negotiation is concluded, the reis is intro- 
duced into the cabin to pay his respects to the howadji ; he 
seats himself with dignity and salutes the ladies with a 
watchful self-respect. The reis is a sedate Nubian, with finely 
cut features but a good many shades darker than would be 
fellowshipped by the Sheltering Wings Association in Amer- 
ica, small feet, and small hands with long tapering fingers that 
confess an aristocratic exemption from manual labor. He 
wears a black gown, and a white turban ; a camel's hair scarf 
distinguishes him from the vulgar. This sheykh boasts I 
suppose as ancient blood as runs in any aristocratic veins, 
counting his ancestors back in unbroken succession to the 
days of the Prophet at least, and not improbably to Ishmael. 
That he wears neither stockings nor slippers does not detract 
from his simple dignity. Our conversation while he pays his 
visit is confined to the smoking of a cigar and some well- 
meant grins and smiles of mutual good feeling. 

While the morning hours pass, we have time to gather all 
the knowledge of Assouan that one needs for the enjoyment of 
life in this world. It is an ordinary Egyptian town of sun- 
baked brick, brown, dusty and unclean, with shabby bazaars 
containing nothing, and full of importunate beggars and 
insatiable traders in curiosities of the upper country. Impor- 
tunate venders beset the traveler as soon as he steps ashore, 
oflfering him all manner of trinkets which he is eager to 
purchase and doesn't know what to do with when he gets 
them. There are crooked, odd-shaped knives and daggers, in 
ornamental sheaths of crocodile skin, and savage spears with 
great round hippopotamus shields from Kartoom or Abys- 
sinia; jagged iron spears and lances and ebony clubs from 
Darfoor; cunning Nubian silver-work, bracelets and great 
rings that have been worn by desert camel-drivers; moth-eaten 
ostrich feathers ; bows and arrows tipped with flint from the 
Soudan, necklaces of glass and dirty leather charms (contain- 
ing words from the Koran) ; broad bracelets and anklets cut 
out of big tusks of elephants and traced in black, rude swords 



PREPARING FOR THE ASCENT. 239 

that it needs two hands to swing ; bracelets of twisted silver 
cord and solid silver as well ; earrings so large that they need 
to be hitched to a strand of the hair for support ; nose-rings 
of brass and silver and gold, as large as the earrings ; and 
*' Nubian costumes " for women — a string with leather fringe 
depending to tie about the loins — suggestions of a tropical 
life under the old dispensation. 

The beach, crowded with trading vessels and piled up with 
merchandise, presents a lively picture. There are piles of 
Manchester cotton and boxes of English brandy — to warm 
outwardly and inwardly the natives of the Soudan — which are 
being loaded, for transport above the rapids, upon kneeling 
dromedaries which protest against the load in that most 
vulgar guttural of all animal sounds, more uncouth and less 
musical than the agonized bray of the donkey — a sort of 
grating menagerie-grumble which has neither the pathos of 
the sheep's bleat nor the dignity of the lion's growl ; and bales 
of cinnamon and senna and ivory to go down the river. The 
wild Bisharee Arab attends his dromedaries ; he has a clear- 
cut and rather delicate face, is bareheaded, wears his black 
hair in ringlets long upon his shoulders, and has for all dress 
a long strip of brown cotton cloth twisted about his body and 
his loins, leaving his legs and his right arm free. There are 
the fat, sleek Greek merchant, in sumptuous white Oriental 
costume, lounging amid his merchandise ; the Syrian in gay 
apparel, with pistols in his shawl-belt, preparing for his 
journey to Kartoom; and the black Nubian sailors asleep on 
the sand. To add a little color to the picture, a Ghawazee, or 
dancing-girl, in striped flaming gown and red slippers, dark 
but comely, covered with gold or silver-gilt necklaces and 
bracelets, is walking about the shore, seeking whom she may 
devour. 

At twelve o'clock we are ready to push off. The wind is 
strong from the north. The cataract men swarm on board, 
two or three Sheykhs and thirty or forty men. They take 
command and possession of the vessel, and our reis and crew 
give way. We have carefully closed the windows and blinds 



240 A MEAL B Y THE WA V. 

of our boat, for the cataract men are reputed to have long 
arms and fingers that crook easily. The Nubians run about 
like cats; four are at the helm, some are on the bow, all are 
talking and giving orders ; there is an indescribable bustle and 
whirl as our boat is shoved off from the sand, with the chorus 
of " Ha ! Yalesah. Ha! Yalesah!"* and takes the current. 
The great sail, shaped like a bird's wing, and a hundred feet 
long, is shaken out forward, and we pass swiftly on our way 
between the granite walls. The excited howadji are on deck 
feeling to their finger ends the thrill of expectancy. 

The first thing the Nubians want is something to eat — a 
chronic complaint here in this land of romance. Squatting 
in circles all over the boat they dip their hands into the bowls 
of softened bread, cramming the food down their throats, and 
swallow all the coffee that can be made for them, with the 
gusto and appetite of simple men who have a stomach and no 
conscience. 

While the Nubians are chattering and eating, we are gliding 
up the swift stream, the granite rocks opening a passage for us ; 
but at the end of it our way seems to be barred. The only visible 
opening is on the extreme left, where a small stream struggles 
through the boulders. While we are wondering if that can be 
our course, the helm is suddenly put hard about, and we then 
shoot to the right, finding our way, amid whirlpools and boulders 
of granite, past the head of Elephantine island ; and before we have 
recovered from this surprise we turn sharply to the left into a 
narrow passage, and the cataract is before us. 

It is not at all what we have expected. In appearence this is 
a cataract without any falls and scarcely any rapids. A person 
brought up on Niagara or Montmorency feels himself trifled with 



• Yalesah (I spell the name according the sound of the pronunciation) was, 
some say, one of the sons of Noah who was absent at the time the ark sailed, 
having gone down into Abyssinia. They pushed the ark in pursuit of him, 
and Noah called after his son, as the crew poled along, " Ha ! Yalesah ! " 
And still the Nile boatmen call Yalesah to come, as they push the poles and 
haul the sail, and urge the boat toward Abyssinia. Very likely " Ha ! Yale- 
sah" (as I catch it) is only a corruption of " Halee ! 'Eesa ; " Seyyidna 'JEesa is 
the Moslem name for " Our Lord Jesus." 



FIRST IMPJ?ESSIONS OF THE CATARACT. 241 

here. The fishermen in the mountain streams of America has 
come upon many a scene that resembles this — a river-bed strewn 
with boulders. Only, this is on a grand scale. We had been led 
to expect at least high precipices, walls of lofty rock, between 
which we should sail in the midst of raging rapids and falls; and 
that there would be hundreds of savages on the rocks above 
dragging our boat with cables, and occasionally plunging into 
the torrent in order to carry a life-line to the top of some sea- 
girt rock. All of this we did not see ; but yet we have more 
respect for the cataract before we get through it than when it 
first came in sight. 

What we see immediately before us is a basin, it may be a 
quarter of a mile, it may be half a mile broad, and two miles 
long; a wild expanse of broken granite rocks and boulders 
strewn hap-hazard, some of them showing the red of the syenite 
and others black and polished and shining in the sun ; a field of 
rocks, none of them high, of fantastic shapes ; and through this 
field the river breaks in a hundred twisting passages and chutes, 
all apparently small, but the water in them is foaming and leaping 
and flashing white ; and the air begins to be pervaded by the 
multitudinous roar of rapids. On the east, the side of the land- 
passage between Assouan and Philse, were high and jagged 
rocks in odd forms, now and then a palm-tree, and here and 
there a mud-village. On the west the basin of the cataract is 
hemmed in by the desert hills, and the yellow Libyan sand 
drifts over them in shining waves and rifts, which in some lights 
have the almost maroon color that we see in Gerome's pictures. 
To the south is an impassable barrier of granite and sand — 
mountains of them — beyond the glistening fields of rocks and 
water through which we are to find our way. 

The difficulty of this navigation is not one cataract to be over- 
come by one heroic effort, but a hundred little cataracts or 
swift tortuous sluiceways, which are much more formidable when 
we get into them than they are when seen at a distance. The 
dahabeehs which attempt to wind through them are in constant 
danger of having holes knocked in their hulls by the rocks. 

The wind is strong, and we are sailing swiftly on. It is im- 
16 



:242 AGAINST THE STREAM. 

possible to tell which one of the half-dozen equally uninviting 
channels we are to take. We guess, and of course point out the 
wrong one. We approach, with sails still set, a narrow passage 
through which the water pours in what is a very respectable 
torrent; but it is not a straight passage, it has a bend in it; if 
we get through it, we must make a sharp turn to the left or run 
upon a ridge of rocks, and even then we shall be in a boiling 
surge ; and if we fail to make head against the current we shall 
go whirling down the caldron, bumping on the rocks — not a 
pleasant thing for a dahabeeh one hundred and twenty feet long 
with a cabin in it as large as a hotel. The passage of a boat of 
this size is. evidently an event of some interest to the cataract 
people, for we see groups of them watching us from the rocks, 
and following along the shore. And we think that seeing our 
boat go up from the shore might be the best way of seeing it. 

We draw slowly in, the boat trembling at the entrance of the 
swift water; it enters, nosing the current, feeling the tug of the 
sail, and hesitates. Oh, for a strong puff of wind ! There are 
five watchful men at the helm; there is a moment's silence, and 
the boat still hesitates. At this critical instant, while we hold 
our breath, a naked man, whose name I am sorry I cannot give 
to an admiring American public, appears on the bow with a rope 
in his teeth; he plunges in and makes for the nearest rock. He 
swims hand over hand, swinging his arms from the shoulders out 
of water and striking them forward splashing along like a side- 
wheeler — the common way of swimming in the heavy water of 
the Nile. Two other black figures follow him and the rope is 
made fast to the point of the rock. We have something to hold " 
us against the stream. 

And now a terrible tumult arises on board the boat which is 
seen to be covered with men; one gang is hauling on the rope to 
draw the great sail close to its work; another gang is hauling on 
the rope attached to the rock, and both are singing that wild 
chanting chorus without which no Egyptian sailors pull an 
ounce or lift a pound ; the men who are not pulling are shouting 
and giving orders ; the Sheykhs, on the upper deck where we sit 
with American serenity exaggerated amid the Babel, are jumping 



THE SHE YKHS CONFAB ULA TE. 243 

up and down in a frenzy of excitement, screaming and gesticu- 
lating. We hold our own; we gain a little; we pull forward 
where the danger of a smash against the rocks is increased. 
More men appear on the rocks, whom we take to be spectators 
of our passage. No; they lay hold of the rope. With the ad- 
ditional help we still tremble in the jaws of the pass. I walk 
aft, and the stern is almost upon the rocks ; it grazes them ; but 
in the nick of time the bow swings round, we turn short off into 
an eddy; the great wing of a sail is let go, and our cat-like 
sailors are aloft, crawling along the slender yard, which is a 
hundred feet in length, and furling the tugging canvas. We 
breathe more freely, for the first danger is over. The first gate is 
passed. 

In this lull there is a confab with the Sheykhs. We are at the 
island of Sehayl, and have accomplished what is usually the first 
day's journey of boats. It would be in harmony with the Oriental 
habit to stop here for the remainder of the day and the night. 
But our dragoman has in mind to accomplish, if not the impossi- 
ble, what is synonomous with it in the East, the unusual. The 
result of the inflammatory stump-speeches on both sides is that 
two or three gold pieces are passed into the pliant hand of the 
head Sheykh, and he sends for another Sheykh and more men. 

For some time we have been attended by increasing processions 
of men and boys on shore ; they cheered us as we passed the 
first rapid ; they came out from the villages, from the crevices of 
the rocks, their blue and white gowns flowing in the wind, and 
make a sort of holiday of our passage. Less conspicuous at first 
are those without gowns — they are hardly distinguishable from 
the black rocks amid which they move. As we lie here, with 
the rising roar of the rapids in our ears, we can see no further 
opening for our passage. 

But we are preparing to go on. Ropes are carried out 
forward over the rocks. More men appear, to aid us. We 
said there were fifty. We count seventy; we count eighty; 
there are at least ninety. They come up by a sort of magic. 
From whence are they, these black forms? They seem to 
grow out of the rocks at the wave of the Sheykh 's hand ; they 



244 A MOMENT OF EXCITEMENT. 

are of the same color, shining men of granite. The swimmers 
and divers are simply smooth statues hewn out of the syenite 
or the basalt. They are not unbaked clay like the rest of us. 
One expects to see them disappear like stones when they 
jump into the water. The mode of our navigation is to draw 
the boat along, hugged close to the shore rocks, so closely 
that the current cannot get full hold of it, and thus to work 
it round the bends. 

We are crawling slowly on in this manner, clinging to the 
rocks, when unexpectedly a passage opens to the left. The 
water before us runs like a mill-race. If we enter it, nothing 
would seem to be able to hold the boat from dashing down 
amidst the breakers. But the bow is hardly let to feel the 
current before it is pulled short round, and we are swinging 
in the swift stream. Before we know it we are in the anxiety 
of another tug. Suppose the rope should break! In an 
instant the black swimmers are overboard striking out for the 
rocks ; two ropes are sent out, and secured ; and, the gangs 
hauling on them, we are working inch by inch through, 
everybody on board trembling with excitement. We look at 
our watches; it seems only fifteen minutes since we left 
Assouan ; it is an hour and a quarter. Do we gain in the 
chute.? It is difficult to say; the boat hangs back and strains 
at the cables; but just as we are in the pinch of doubt, the big 
sail unfurls its wing with exciting suddenness, a strong gust 
catches it, we feel the lift, and creep upward, amid an infernal 
din of singing and shouting and calling on the Prophet from 
the gangs who haul in the sail-rope, who tug at the cables 
attached to the rocks, who are pulling at the hawsers on the 
shore. We forge ahead and are about to dash into a boiling 
caldron before us, from which there appears to be no escape, 
when a skillful turn of the great creaking helm once more 
throws us to the left, and we are again in an eddy with the 
stream whirling by us, and the sail is let go and is furled. 

The place where we lie is barely long enough to admit our 
boat; its stern just clears the rocks, its bow is aground on 
hard sand. The number of men and boys on the rocks has 



THE GRANITE MAN. 245 

increased; it is over one hundred, it is one hundred and 
thirty; on a re-count it is one hundred and fifty. An anchor 
is now carried out to hold us in position when we make 
a new start ; more ropes are taken to the shore, two hitched 
to the bow and one to the stern. Straight before us is a 
narrow passage through which the water comes in foaming 
ridges with extraordinary rapidity. It seems to be our way; 
but of course it is not. We are to turn the corner sharply, 
before reaching it ; what will happen then we shall see. 

There is a slight lull in the excitement, while the extra 
hawsers are got out and preparations are made for the next 
struggle. The sheykhs light their long pipes, and squatting 
on deck gravely wait. The men who have tobacco roll up 
cigarettes and smoke them. The swimmers come on board 
for reinforcement. The poor fellows are shivering as if they 
had an ague fit. The Nile may be friendly, though it does 
not offer a warm bath at this time of the year, but when they 
come out of it naked on the rocks the cold north wind sets 
their white teeth chattering. The dragoman brings out a 
bottle of brandy. It is none of your ordinary brandy, but 
must have cost over a dollar a gallon, and would burn a hole 
in a new piece of cotton cloth. He pours out a tumblerful 
of it, and offers it to one of the granite men. The granite man 
pours it down his throat in one flow, without moving an 
eye-winker, and holds the glass out for another. His throat 
must be lined with zinc. A second tumblerful follows the 
first. It is like pouring liquor into a brazen image. 

I said there was a lull, but this is only m contrast to the 
preceding fury. There is still noise enough, over and above 
the roar of the waters, in the preparations going forward, the 
din of a hundred people screaming together, each one giving 
orders, and elaborating his opinion by a rhetorical use of his 
hands. The waiting crowd scattered over the rocks disposes 
itself picturesquely, as an Arab crowd always does, and 
probably cannot help doing, in its blue and white gowns and 
white turbans. In the midst of these preparations, and 
unmindful of any excitement or confusion, a Sheykh, standing 



246 AUDACIOUS SWIMMERS. 

upon a little square of sand amid the rocks, and so close to the 
deck of the boat that we can hear his " Allahoo Akbar" (God is 
most Great), begins his kneelings and prostrations towards 
Mecca, and continues at his prayers, as undisturbed and as 
unregarded as if he were in a mosque, and wholly oblivious 
of the babel around him. So common has religion become in 
this land of its origin ! Here is a half-clad Sheykh of the 
desert stopping, in the midst of his contract to take the 
howadji up the cataract, to raise his forefinger and say, "I 
testify that there is no deity but God; and I testify that 
Mohammed is his servant and his apostle." 

Judging by the eye, the double turn we have next to make 
is too short to admit our long hull. It does not seem possible 
that we can squeeze through ; but we try. We first swing 
out and take the current as if we were going straight up the 
rapids. We are held by two ropes from the stern, while by 
four ropes from the bow, three on the left shore and one on 
an islet to the right, the cataract people are tugging to draw 
us up. As we watch almost breathless the strain on the 
ropes, look ! there is a man in the tumultuous rapid before us 
swiftly coming down as if to his destruction. Another one 
follows, and then another, till there are half a dozen men and 
boys in this jeopardy, this situation of certain death to 
anybody not made of cork. And the singular thing about it 
is that the men are seated upright, sliding down the shining 
water like a boy, who has no respect for his trowsers, down a 
snow-bank. As they dash past us, we see that each man is 
seated on a round log about five feet long; some of them sit 
upright with their legs on the log, displaying the soles of 
their feet, keeping the equilibrium with their hands. These 
are smooth slimy logs that a white man would find it difficult 
to sit on if they were on shore, and in this water they would 
turn with him only once — the log would go one way and the 
man another. But these fellows are in no fear of the rocks 
below; they easily guide their barks out of the rushing floods, 
through the whirlpools and eddies, into the slack shore-water 
in the rear of the boat, and stand up like men and demand 



CLOSE STEERING. 24T 



backsheesh. These logs are popular ferry-boats in the Upper 
Nile; I have seen a woman crossing the river on one, her 
clothes in a basket and the basket on her head — and the Nile 
is nowhere an easy stream to swim. 

Far ahead of us the cataract people are seen in lines and 
groups, half-hidden by the rocks, pulling and stumbling 
along; black figures are scattered along lifting the ropes. 
over the jagged stones, and freeing them so that we shall not. 
be drawn back, as we slowly advance ; and severe as their toil 
is, it is not enough to keep them warm when the chilly wind 
strikes them. They get bruised on the rocks also, and have; 
time to show us their barked shins and request backsheesh. 
An Egyptian is never too busy or too much in peril to forget 
to prefer that request at the sight of a traveler. When we' 
turn into the double twist I spoke of above, the bow goes: 
sideways upon a rock, and the stern is not yet free. The punt- 
poles are brought into requisition ; half the men are in the: 
water ; there is poling and pushing and grunting, heaving,, 
and "Yah Moham;/z^^, Yah Moham/«i?^," with all which, 
noise and outlay of brute strength, the boat moves a little on 
and still is held close in hand. The current runs very swiftly 
We have to turn almost by a right angle to the left and then 
by the same angle to the right ; and the question is whether 
the boat is not too long to turn in the space. We just scrape 
along the rocks, the current growing every moment stronger,, 
and at length get far enough to let the stern swing. I run 
back to see if it will go free. It is a close fit. The stern is 
clear ; but if our boat had been four or five feet longer, her 
voyage would have ended then and there. There is now 
before us a straight pull up the swiftest and narrowest rapid 
we have thus far encountered. 

Our sandal — the row-boat belonging to the dahabeeh, that 
becomes a felucca when a mast is stepped into it — which has 
accompanied us fitfully during the passage, appearing here and 
there tossing about amid the rocks, and aiding occasionally in 
the transport of ropes and men to one rock and another, now 
turns away to seek a less difficult passage. The rocks all about 



248 A COMICAL ORCHESTRA. 

US are low, from three feet to ten feet high. We have one rope out 
ahead, fastened to a rock, upon which stand a gang of men, 
pulling. There is a row of men in the water under the left side of 
the boat, heaving at her with their broad backs, to prevent her 
smashing on the rocks. But our main dragging force is in the 
two long lines of men attached to the ropes on the left shore. 
They stretch out ahead of us so far that it needs an opera-glass 
to discover whether the leaders are pulling or only soldiering. 
These two long struggling lines are led and directed by a new 
figure who appears upon this operatic scene. It is a comical 
Sheykh, who stands upon a high rock at one side and lines out 
the catch-lines of a working refrain, while the gangs howl and 
haul, in a surging chorus. Nothing could be wilder or more 
ludicrous, in the midst of this roar of rapids and strain of 
cordage. The Sheykh holds a long staff which he swings like 
the baton of the leader of an orchestra, quite unconscious of the 
odd figure he cuts against the blue sky. He grows more and 
more excited, he swings his arms, he shrieks, but always in tune 
and in time with the hauling and the wilder chorus of the 
cataract men, he lifts up his right leg, he lifts up his left leg, he 
is in the very ecstasy of the musical conductor, displaying his 
white teeth, and raising first one leg and then the other in a 
delirious swinging motion, all the more picturesque on account 
of his flowing blue robe and his loose white cotton drawers. 
He lifts his leg with a gigantic pull, which is enough in itself to 
draw the boat onward, and every time he lifts it, the boat gains 
on the current. Surely such an orchestra and such a leader was 
never seen before. For the orchestra is scattered over half an 
acre of ground, swaying and pulling and singing in rhythmic 
show, and there is a high wind and a blue sky, and rocks and 
foaming torrents, and an African village with palms in the back- 
ground, amid the debris of the great convulsion of nature which 
has resulted in this chaos. Slowly we creep up against the 
stiff boiling stream, the good Moslems on deck muttering prayers 
and telling their beads, and finally make the turn and pass the 
worst eddies; and as we swing round into an ox-bow channel 
to the right, the big sail is again let out and hauled in, and with 



THE FINAL STRUGGLE. 249 

•cheers we float on some rods and come into a quiet shelter, a 
stage beyond the journey usually made the first day. It is now 
three o'clock. 

We have come to the real cataract, to the stiffest pull and the 
most dangerous passage. 

A small freight dahabeeh obstructs the way, and while this is 
being hauled ahead, we prepare for the final struggle. The 
chief cataract is called Bab (gate) Aboo Rabbia, from one of 
Mohammed Ali's captains who some years ago vowed that he 
would take his dahabeeh up it with his own crew and without' 
aid from the cataract people. He lost his boat. It is also 
■sometmes called Bab Inglese from a young Englishman, named 
Cave, who attempted to swim down it early one morning, in 
imitation of the Nubian swimmers, and was drawn into the 
whirlpools, and not found for days after. For this last struggle, 
in addition to the other ropes, an enormous cable is bent on, not 
tied to the bow, but twisted round the cross-beams of the forward 
deck, and carried out over the rocks. From the shelter where 
we lie we are to push out and take the current at a sharp angle. 
The water of this main cataract sucks down from both sides 
above through a channel perhaps one hundred feet wide, very 
rapid and with considerable fall, and with such force as to raise 
a ridge in the middle. To pull up this hill of water is the tug ; 
if the ropes let go we shall be dashed into a hundred pieces on 
the rocks below and be swallowed in the whirlpools. It would 
not be a sufficient compensation for this fate to have this rapid 
hereafter take our name. 

The preparations are leisurely made, the lines are laid along the 
rocks and the men are distributed. The fastenings are carefully 
examined. Then we begin to move. There are now four con- 
ductors of this gigantic orchestra (the employment of which as 
a musical novelty I respectfully recommend to the next Boston 
Jubilee), each posted on a high rock, and waving a stick with a 
white rag tied to it. It is now four o'clock. An hour has been 
consumed in raising the curtain for the last act. We are now 
carefully under way along the rocks which are almost within 
reach, held tight by the side ropes, but pushed off and slowly 



250 APPROACHING SUCCESS. 

urged along by a line of half-naked fellows under the left side, 
whose backs are against the boat and whose feet walk along the 
perpendicular ledge. It would take only a sag of the boat,, 
apparently, to crush tliem. It does not need our eyes to tell 
us when the bow of the boat noses the swift water. Our sandal 
has meantime carried a line to a rock on the opposite side of 
the channel, and our sailors haul on this and draw us ahead. 
But we are held firmly by the shore lines. The boat is never 
suffered, as I said, to get an inch the advantage, but is always 
held tight in hand. 

As we appear at the foot of the rapid, men come riding down 
it on logs as before, a sort of horseback feat in the boiling 
water, steering themselves round the eddies and landing below 
us. One of them swims round to the rock where a line is tied, 
and looses it as we pass ; another, sitting on the slippery stick 
and showing the white soles of his black feet, paddles himself 
about amid the whirlpools. We move so slowly that we have 
time to enjoy all these details, to admire the deep yellow of the 
Libyan sand drifted over the rocks at the right, and to cheer a 
sandal bearing the American flag which is at this moment 
shooting the rapids in another channel beyond us, tossed about 
like a cork. We see the meteor flag flashing out, we lose it 
behind the rocks, and catch it again appearing below. " Oh star 
spang" — but our own orchestra is in full swing again. The 
comical Sheykh begins to swing his arms and his stick back 
and forth in an increasing measure, until his whole body is drawn 
into the vortex of his enthusiasm, and one leg after the other, by 
a sort of rhythmic hitch, goes up displaying the white and baggy 
cotton drawers. The other three conductors join in, and a 
deafening chorus from two hundred men goes up along the ropes, 
while we creep slowly on amid the suppressed excitement of 
those on board who anxiously watch the straining cables, and 
with a running fire of "backsheesh, backsheesh," from the boys 
on the rocks close at hand. The cable holds ; the boat nags 
and jerks at it in vain; through all the roar and rush we go on, 
lifted I think perceptibly every time the sheykh lifts his leg. 

At the right moment the sail is again shaken down ; and the 



TRIUMPH A NT! 251 



boat at once feels it. It is worth five liundred men. The ropes 
slacken; we are going by the wind against the current; haste is 
made to unbend the cable ; line after line is let go until we are 
held by one alone ; the crowd thins out, dropping away with no 
warning and before we know that the pl|^ is played out, the 
cataract people have lost all interest in' it and are scattering 
over the black rocks to their homes. A few stop to cheer; the 
chief conductor is last seen on a rock, swinging the white rag, 
hurrahing and salaaming in grinning exultation; the last line is 
cast off, and we round the point and come into smooth but swift 
water, and glide into a calm wind. The noise, the struggle, 
the tense strain, the uproar of men and waves for four hours 
are all behind; and hours of keener excitement and enjoyment 
we have rarely known. At 12.20 we left Assouan; at 4.45 we 
swung round the rocky bend above the last and greatest rapid. 
I write these figures ,Tor they will be not without a melancholy 
interest to those who have spent two or three days or a week 
in making this passage. 

Turning away from the ragged mountains of granite which 
obstruct the straight course of the river, we sail by Mahatta, a 
little village of Nubians, a port where the trading and freight 
boats plying between the First and Second Cataract load and 
unload. There is a forest of masts and spars along the shore 
which is piled with merchandise, and dotted with sunlit 
figures squatting in the sand as if waiting for the goods to 
tranship themselves. With the sunlight slanting on our full 
sail, we glide into the shadow of high rocks, and enter, with 
the suddenness of a first discovery, into a deep winding river, 
the waters of which are dark and smooth, between lofty walls of 
granite. These historic masses, which have seen pass so many 
splendid processions and boastful expeditions of conquest in 
what seems to us the twilight of the world, and which excited 
the wonder of Father Herodotus only the other day, almost in 
our own time (for the Greeks belong to us and not to 
antiquity as it now unfolds itself), are piled in strange shapes, 
tottling rock upon rock, built up grotesquely, now in likeness 
of an animal, or the gigantic profile of a human face, or 



252 THE TEMPLE OF ISIS. 

temple walls and castle towers and battlements. We wind 
through this solemn highway, and suddenly, in the very 
gateway, Philae ! The lovely ! Philae, the most sentimental 
ruin in Egypt. There are the great pylon of the temple of 
Isis, the long colonnades of pillars, the beautiful square 
temple, with lofty columns and elongated capitals, mis- 
named Pharaoh's bed. The little oblong island, something 
like twelve hundred feet long,bandedall round by an artificial 
wall, an island of rock completely covered with ruins, is set 
like the stone of a ring, with a circle of blue water about it, in 
the clasp of higher encircling granite peaks and ledges. On the 
left bank, as we turn to pass to the east of the island, is a 
gigantic rock which some persons have imagined was a colossus 
once, perhaps in pre-Adamic times, but which now has no 
resemblance to human shape, except in a breast and left arm. 
Some Pharaoh cut his cartouche on the back — a sort of postage- 
stamp to pass the image along down the ages. The Pharaohs 
were a vulgar lot; they cut their names wherever they could 
find a conspicuous and smooth place. 

While we are looking, distracted with novelty at every turn 
and excited by a grandeur and loveliness opening upon us every 
moment, we have come into a quiet haven, shut in on all sides 
by broken ramparts, — alone with this island of temples. The sun 
is about to set, and its level light comes to us through the 
columns, and still gilds with red and yellow gold the Libyan 
sand sifted over the cliffs. We moor at once to a sand-bank 
which has formed under the broken walls, and at once step on 
shore. We climb to the top of the temple walls ; we walk on 
the stone roof; we glance into the temple on the roof, where is 
sculptured the resurrection of Osiris. This cannot be called an 
old temple. It is a creation of the Ptolemies, though it doubtless 
replaced an older edifice. The temple of Isis was not begun 
more than three centuries before our era. Not all of these 
structures were finished — the priests must have been still carving 
on their walls these multitudes of sculptures, when Christ began 
his mission ; and more than four centuries after that the 
mysterious rites of Isis were still celebrated in these dark 



ANCIENT KINGS AND MODERN CONQUERORS. 253 

chambers. It is silent and dead enough here now ; and there 
lives nowhere upon the earth any man who can even conceive 
the state of mind that gave those rites vitality. Even Egypt has 
changed its superstitions. 

Peace has come upon the earth after the strain of the last few 
hours. We can scarcely hear the roar of the rapids, in the 
beating of which we had been. The sun goes, leaving a changing 
yellow and faint orange on the horizon. Above in the west is 
the crescent moon ; and now all the sky thereabout is rosy, 
even to the zenith, a delicate and yet deep color, like that of the 
blush-rose — a transparent color that glows. A little later we see 
from our boat the young moon through the columns of the lesser 
temple. The January night is clear and perfectly dry; no dew 
is falling — no dew ever falls here — and the multiplied stars bum 
with uncommon lustre. When everything else is still, we hear 
the roar of the rapids coming steadily on the night breeze, 
sighing through the old and yet modern palace-temples of the 
parvenu Ptolemies, and of Cleopatra — a new race of conquerors 
and pleasure-hunters, who in vain copied the magnificent works 
of the ancient Pharaohs. 

Here on a pylon gate. General Dessaix has recorded the fact 
that in February (Ventose) in the seventh year of the Republic, 
General Bonaparte being then in possession of Lower Egypt he 
pursued to this spot the retreating Memlooks. Egyptian kings, 
Ethiopian usurpers, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Nectanebo, Cam- 
byses, Ptolemy, Philadelphus, Cleopatra and her Roman lovers, 
Dessaix, — these are all shades now. 



CHAPTER XX. 



ON THE BORDERS OF THE DESERT. 



N PASSING the First Cataract of the Nile we pass an ancient 
boundary line; we go from the Egypt of old to the Ethiopia 
of old; we go from the Egypt proper of to-day, into Nubia. 
We find a different country, a different river ; the people are of 
another race ; they have a different language. We have left the 
mild, lazy, gentle fellaheen — a mixed lot, but in general of 
Arabic blood — and come to Barabra, whose district extends 
from Philse to the Second Cataract, a freer, manlier, sturdier 
people altogether. There are two tribes of them, the Kenoos 
and the Nooba; each has its own language. 

Philae was always the real boundary line, though the Pharaohs 
pushed their frontier now and again, down towards the Equator, 
and built temples and set up their images, as at Aboo Simbel, as 
at Samneh, and raked • the south land for slaves and ivory, 
concubines and gold. But the Ethiopians turned the tables 
now and again, and conquered Egypt, and reigned in the 
palaces of the Pharaohs, taking that title even, and making their 
names dreaded as far as Judea and Assyria. 

The Ethiopians were cousins indeed of the old Egyptians, and 
of the Canaanites, for they were descendants of Cush, as the 
Egyptians were of Mizriam, and the Canaanites were of Canaan; 
three of the sons of Ham. The Cushites, or Ethiops, although 
so much withdrawn from the theater of history, have done their 
share of fighting — the main business of man hitherto. Besides 
quarrels with their own brethren, they had often the attentions 

254 



NECROLAND. 255 



of the two chief descendants of Shem, — the Jews and the Arabs; 
and after Mohammed's coming, the Arabs descended into 
Nubia and forced the inhabitants into their religion at the point 
of the sword. Even the sons of Japhet must have their crack 
at these children of the "Sun-burned." It was a Roman 
prefect who, to avenge an attack on Syene by a warlike woman, 
penetrated as far south as El Berkel (of the present day), and 
overthrew Candace the Queen of the Ethiopians in Napata, her 
capital; the large city, also called Meroe, of which Herodotus 
heard such wonders. 

Beyond Ethiopia lies the vast, black cloud of Negroland. 
These negroes, with the crisp, woolly hair, did not descend 
from anybody, according to the last reports; neither from Shem, 
Ham nor Japhet. They have no part in the royal house of 
Noah. They are left out in the heat. They are the puzzle of 
ethnologists, the mystery of mankind. They are the real aris- 
tocracy of the world, their origin being lost in the twilight of 
time ; no one else can trace his descent so far back and come to 
nothing. M. Lenormant says the black races have no tradition 
of the Deluge. They appear to have been passed over alto- 
gether, then. Where were they hidden 1 When we first know 
Central Africa they are there. Where did they come from.? 
The great effort of ethnologists is to get them dry-shod round 
the Deluge, since derivation from Noah is denied them. His- 
tory has no information how they came into Africa. It seems 
to me that, in history, whenever we hear of the occupation of a 
new land, there is found in it a primitive race, to be driven out 
or subdued. The country of the primitive negro is the only one 
that has never invited the occupation of a more powerful race. 
But the negro blood, by means of slavery, has been extensively 
distributed throughout the Eastern world. 

These reflections did not occur to us the morning we left 
Philae. It was too early. In fact, the sun was just gilding 
"Pharaoh's bed," as the beautiful little Ptolemaic temple is 
called, when we spread sail and, in the shadow of the broken 
crags and savage rocks, began to glide out of the jaws of this 
wild pass. At early morning everything has the air of adven- 



256 CONVERSION MADE EASY. 

ture. It was as if we were discoverers, about to come into a 
new African kingdom at each turn in the swift stream. 

One must see, he cannot imagine, the havoc and destruction 
hereabout, the grotesque and gigantic fragments of rock, the 
islands of rock, the precipices of rock, made by the torrent 
when it broke through here. One of these islands is Biggeh — 
all rocks, not enough soft spot on it to set a hen. The rocks 
are piled up into the blue sky; from their summit we get the 
best view of Philse — the jewel set in this rim of stone. 

Above Philee we pass the tomb of a holy man, high on the 
hill, and underneath it, clinging to the slope, the oldest mosque 
in Nubia, the Mosque of Belal, falling now into ruin, but the 
minaret shows in color no sign of great age. How should it in 
this climate, where you might leave a pair of white gloves upon 
the rocks for a year, and expect to find them unsoiled. 

" How old do you suppose that mosque is Abd-el-Atti ? " 

" I tink about twelve hundred years old. Him been built by 
the Friends of our prophet when they come up here to make the 
people believe." 

I like this euphuism, "But," we ask, "suppose they didn't 
believe, what then 1 " 

"When thim believe, all right; when thim not believe, do 
away wid 'em." 

" But they might believe something else, if not what Moham- 
med believed." 

"Well, what our Prophet say.^ Mohammed, he say, find him 
anybody believe in God, not to touch him; find him anybody 
believe in the Christ, not to touch him; find him anybody 
believe in Moses, not to touch him; find him believe in the 
prophets, not to touch him ; find him believe in bit wood, piece 
stone, do way wid him. Not so.? Men worship something 
wood, stone, I can't tell — I tink dis is nothing." 

Abd-el-Atti always says the " Friends " of Mohammed, never 
followers or disciples. It is a pleasant word, and reminds us of 
our native land. Mohammed had the good sense that our 
politicians have. When he wanted anything, a city taken, a 
new strip of territory added, a "third term," or any trifle, he 
"put himself in the hands of his friends." 



A LAND OF NEGATIVE BLESSINGS. 257 

The Friends were successful in this region. While the 
remote Abyssinians retained Christianity, the Nubians all be- 
came Moslems, and so remain to this day. 

"You think, then, Abd-el-Atti, that the Nubians believed?" 

"Thim 'bliged. But I tink these fellows, all of 'em, Mussel- 
mens as far as the throat; it don't go lower down." 

The story is that this mosque was built by one of Mohammed's 
captains after the great battle here with the Infidels — the 
Nubians. Those who fell in the fight, it is also only tradition, 
were buried in the cemetery near Assouan, and they are 
martyrs : to this day the Moslems who pass that way take off 
their slippers and shoes. 

After the battle, as the corpses of the slain lay in indistin- 
guishable heaps, it was impossible to tell who were martyrs 
and who were unbelievers. Mohammed therefore ordered that 
they should bury as Moslems all those who had large feet, and 
pleasant faces, with the mark of prayer on the forehead. The 
bodies of the others were burned as infidels. 

As we sweep along, the mountains are still high on either side, 
and the strips of verdure are very slight. On the east bank, 
great patches of yellow sand, yellow as gold, and yet reddish 
in some lights, catch the sun. 

I think it is the finest morning I ever saw, for clearness and 
dryness. The thermometer indicates only 60°, and yet it is not 
too cool. The air is like wine. The sky is absolutely cloudless, 
and of wonderful clarity. Here is a perfectly pure and sweet 
atmosphere. After a little, the wind freshens, and it is somewhat 
cold an deck, but the sky is like sapphire ; let the wind blow for 
a month, it will raise no cloud, nor any film of it. 

Everything is wanting in Nubia that would contribute to the 
discomfort of a winter residence : — 

It never rains ; 

There is never any dew above Philse ; 

There are no flies; 

There are no fleas; 

There are no bugs, nor any insects whatever. The attempt to 
introduce fleas into Nubia by means of dahabeehs has been a 
failure. 17 



258 COOL AIR FROM THE DESERT. 

In fact there is very little animal life ; scarcely any birds are 
seen ; fowls of all sorts are rare. There are gazelles, however, 
and desert hares, and chameleons. Our chameleons nearly 
starved for want of flies. There are big crocodiles and large 
lizards. 

In a bend a few miles above Philse is a whirlpool called Shaym- 
t el Wah, from which is supposed to be a channel communicating 
under the mountain to the Great Oasis one hundred miles 
distant. The popular belief in these subterranean communi- 
cations is very common thoroughout the East. The holy well, 
Zem-Zem, at Mecca has a connection with a spring at El Gebel 
in Syria. I suppose that is perfectly well known. Abd-el-Atti 
has tasted the waters of both; and they are exactly alike; 
besides, did he not know of a pilgrim who lost his drinking-cup 
in Zem-Zem and recovered it in El Gebel. 

This Nubia is to be sure, but a river with a colored border, 
but I should like to make it seem real to you and not a mere 
country of the imagination. People find room to live here ; life 
goes on after a fashion, and every mile there are evidences of a 
mighty civilization and a great power which left its record in 
gigantic works. There was a time, before the barriers broke 
away at Silsilis, when this land was inundated by the annual 
rise ; the Nile may have perpetually expanded above here into a 
lake, as Herodotus reports. 

We sail between low ridges of rocky hills, with narrow banks of 
green and a few palms, but occasionally there is a village of 
square mud-houses. At Gertassee, boldly standing out on a 
rocky platform, are some beautiful columns, the remains of a 
temple built in the Roman time. The wind is strong and 
rather colder with the turn of noon ; the nearer we come to the 
tropics the colder it becomes. The explanation is that we get 
nothing but desert winds ; and the desert is cool at this season ; 
that is, it breeds at night cool air, although one does not complain 
of its frigidity who walks over it at midday. 

After passing Tafa, a pretty-looking village in the palms, 
which boasts ruins both pagan and Christian, we come to rapids 
and scenery almost as wild and lovely as that at Philse. The 



THE NUBIAN COSTUME. 259 

river narrows, there are granite rocks and black boulders in the 
stream ; we sail for a couple of miles in swift and deep water, 
between high cliffs, and by lofty rocky islands — not without 
leafage and some cultivation, and through a series of rapids, not 
difficult but lively. And so we go cheerily on, through savage 
nature and gaunt ruins of forgotten history; past Kalabshe, 
where are remains of the largest temple in Nubia; past Bayt el 
Wellee — " the house of the saint " — where Rameses II. hewed a 
beautiful temple out of the rock; past Gerf Hossayn, where 
Rameses II. hewed a still larger temple out of the rock and 
covered it with his achievements, pictures in which he appears 
twelve feet high, and slaying small enemies as a husbandman 
threshes wheat with a flail. I should like to see an ancient 
stone wall in Egypt, where this Barnum of antiquity wasn't 
advertising himself. 

We leave him flailing the unfortunate ; at eight in the evening 
we are still going on, first by the light of the crescent moon, and 
then by starlight, which is like a pale moonlight, so many and 
lustrous are the stars; and last, about eleven o'clock we go 
aground, and stop a little below Dakkeh, or seventy-one miles 
from Philae, that being our modest run for the day, 

Dakkeh, by daylight, reveals itself as a small mud-village 
attached to a large temple. You would not expect to find a 
temple here, but its great pylon looms over the town and it is 
worth at least a visit. To see such a structure in America we 
would travel a thousand miles ; the traveler on the Nile debates 
whether he will go ashore. 

The bank is lined with the natives who have something to sell, 
eggs, milk, butter in little greasy "pats," and a sheep. The 
men are, as to features and complexion, rather Arabic than 
Nubian. The women have the high cheek-bones and broad 
faces of our Indian squaws, whom they resemble in a general 
way. The little girls who wear the Nubian costume (a belt 
with fringe) and strings of beads, are not so bad; some of them 
well formed. The morning is cool and the women all wear 
some outer garment, so that the Nubian costume is not seen in 
its simplicity, except as it is worn by children. I doubt if it is 



260 '^ TURNING THE TABLES.'' 

at any season. So far as we have observed the Nubian women 
they are as modest in their dress as their Egyptian sisters. 
Perhaps ugliness and modesty are sisters in their country. All 
the women and girls have their hair braided in a sort of plait in 
front, and heavily soaked with grease, so that it looks as if they 
had on a wig or a frontlet of leather; it hangs in small, hard, 
greasy curls, like leathern thongs, down each side. The hair 
appears never to be undone — only freshly greased every morn- 
ing. Nose-rings and earrings abound. 

This handsome temple was began by Ergamenes, an Ethiopian 
king ruling at Meroe, at the time of the second Ptolemy, during 
the Greek period ; and it was added to both by Ptolemies and 
Caesars. This Nubia would seem to have been in possession of 
Ethiopians and Egyptians turn and turn about, and, both having 
the same religion, the temples prospered. 

Ergamenes has gained a reputation by a change he made in 
his religion, as it was practiced in Meroe. When the priests 
thought a king had reigned long enough it was their custom to 
send him notice that the gods had ordered him to die; and the 
king, who would rather die than commit an impiety, used to die. 
But Ergamenes tried another method, which he found worked 
just as well; he assembled all the priests, and slew them — a very 
sensible thing on his part. 

You would expect such a man to build a good temple. The 
sculptures are very well executed, whether they are of his time, 
or owe their inspiration to Berenice and Cleopatra ; they show 
greater freedom and variety than those of most temples; the 
figures of lion, monkeys, cows, and other animals are excellent ; 
and there is a picture of a man playing on a musical instrument, 
a frame with strings stretched over it, played like a harp but not 
harp shaped — the like of which is seen nowhere else. The 
temple has the appearance of a fortification as well as a place 
of worship. The towers of the propylon are ascended by interior 
flights of stairs, and have, one above the other, four good-sized 
chambers. The stairways and the rooms are lighted by slits 
in the wall about an inch in diameter on the outside ; but cut 
with a slant from the interior through some five feet of solid 



THE GREAT DESERT. 261 

Stone. These windows are exactly like those in European towers, 
and one might easily imagine himself in a Middle Age fortifica- 
tion. The illusion is heightened by the remains of Christian 
paintings on the walls, fresh in color, and in style very like those 
of the earliest Christian art in Italian churches. In the temple 
we are attended by a Nubian with a long and threatening spear, 
such as the people like to carry here ; the owner does not care 
for blood, however ; he only wants a little backsheesh. 

Beyond Dakkeh the country opens finely; the mountains 
fall back, and we look a long distance over the desert on each 
side, the banks having only a few rods of green. Far off in 
the desert on either hand and in front, are sharp pyramidal 
mountains, in ranges, in groups, the resemblance to pyramids 
being very striking. The atmosphere as to purity is extraor- 
dinary. Simply to inspire it is a delight for which one may 
well travel thousands of miles. 

We pass small patches of the castor-oil plant, and of a 
reddish-stemmed bush, bearing the Indian bendigo, Arabic 
bahima., the fruit a sort of bean in appearance and about as 
palatable. The castor-oil is much used by the women as a 
hair-dressing, but they are not fastidious ; they use something 
else if oil is wanting. The demand for butter for this 
purpose raised the price of it enormously this morning at 
Dakkeh. 

In the afternoon, waiting for wind, we walk ashore and out 
upon the naked desert — the desert which is broken only by 
an occasional oasis, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea ; it has 
a basis of limestone, strewn with sand like gold-dust, and 
a detritus of stone as if it had been scorched by fire and 
worn by water. There is a great pleasure in strolling over 
this pure waste blown by the free air. We visit a Nubian 
village, and buy some spurious scarabaei off the necks of the 
ladies of the town — alas, for rural simplicity! But these 
women are not only sharp, they respect themselves sufficiently 
to dress modestly and even draw their shawls over their faces. 
The children take the world as they find it, as to clothes. 

The night here, there being no moisture in the air is as 



262 -S-ZA^, GREASE, AND TAXES. 

brilliant as the day ; I have never seen the moon and stars so 
clear elsewhere. These are the evenings that invite to long 
pipes and long stories. Abd-el-Atti opens his budget from 
time to time, as we sit on deck and while the time with 
anecdotes and marvels out of old Arab chronicles, spiced 
with his own ready wit and singular English. Most of them 
are too long for these pages ; but here is an anecdote which, 
whether true or not illustrates the character of old Mohammed 
Ali:— 

" Mohammed Ali sent one of his captains, name of Walee 
Kasheef, to Derr, capital of Nubia (you see it by and by, very 
fashionable place, like I see 'em in Hydee Park, what you 
call Rotten Row), Walee when he come there, see the 
women, their hair all twisted up and stuck together with grease 
and castor-oil, and their bodies covered with it. He called 
the sheykhs together and made them present of soap, and 
told them to make the women clean the hair and wash 
themselves, and make themselves fit for prayer. It was in 
accordin' to the Moslem religion so to do. 

"The Nubians they not like this part of our religion, they 
not like it at all. They send the sheykhs down to have 
conversation with Mohammed Ali, who been stop at Esneh. 
They complain of what Walee done. Mohammed send for 
Walee, and say, 

" ' What this you been done in Nubia .? ' 

"'Nothing, your highness, 'cept trying to make the Nubians 
conform to the religion.' 

"'Well," says old Mohammed, 'I not send you up there as 
a priest; I send you up to get a little money. Don't you 
trouble the Nubians. We don't care if they go to Genneh or 
Gehennem, if you get the money.' " 

So the Nubians were left in sin and grease, and taxed 
accordingly. And at this day the taxes are even heavier. 
Every date-palm and every sakiya is taxed, A sakiya some- 
times pays three pounds a year, when there is not a piece of 
fertile land for it to water three rods square. 




CHAPTER XXI 



ETHIOPIA. 



IT IS a sparkling morning at Wady Sabooa; we have the 
desert and some of its high, scarred, and sandy pyramidal 
peaks close to us, but as is usual where a wady, or valley, 
comes to the river, there is more cultivated land. We see 
very little of the temple of Rameses II. in this "Valley of the 
Lions," nor of the sphinxes in front of it. The desert sand 
has blov/n over it and over it in drifts like snow, so that we 
walk over the buried sanctuary, greatly to our delight. It is 
a pleasure to find one adytum into which we cannot go and 
see this Rameses pretending to make offerings, but really, as 
usual, offering to show himself. 

At the village under the ledges, many of the houses are of 
stone, and the sheykh has a pretentious stone enclosure with 
little in it, all to himself. Shadoofs are active along the bank, 
and considerable crops of wheat, beans, and corn are well 
forward. We stop to talk with a bright-looking Arab, who 
employs men to work his shadoofs, and lives here in an 
enclosure of cornstalks, with a cornstalk kennel in one corner, 
where he and his family sleep. There is nothing pretentious 
about this establishment, but the owner is evidently a man of 
wealth, and, indeed, he has the bearing of a shrewd Yankee. 
He owns a camel, two donkeys, several calves and two cows, 
and two young Nubian girls for wives, black as coal and 
greased, but rather pleasant-faced. He has also two good 
guns — appears to have duplicates of nearly everything. Out 
of the cornstalk shanty his wives bring some handsome rugs 
for us to sit on. 

263 



264: PRIMITIVE A TTIRE. 

The Arab accompanies us on our walk, as a sort of host of 
the country, and we are soon joined by others, black fellows; 
some of them carry the long flint-lock musket, for which they 
seem to have no powder; and all wear a knife in a sheath on 
the left arm ; but they are as peaceable friendly folk as you 
would care to meet, and simple-minded. I show the Arab 
my field-glass, an object new to his experience. He looks 
through it, as I direct, and is an astonished man, making 
motions with his hand, to indicate how the distant objects are 
drawn towards him, laughing with a soft and childlike 
delight, and then lowering the glass, looks at it, and cries, 

" Bismillah ! Bismillah," an ejaculation of wonder, and 
also intended to divert any misfortune from coming upon 
him on account of his indulgence in this pleasure. 

He soon gets the use of the glass and looks beyond the 
river and all about, as if he were discovering objects unknown 
to him before. The others all take a turn at it, and are 
equally astonished and delighted. But when I cause them to 
look through the large end at a dog near by, and they see 
him remove far off in the desert, their astonishment is com- 
plete. My comrade's watch interested them nearly as much, 
although they knew its use; they could never get enough of 
its ticking and of looking at its works, and they concluded 
that the owner of it must be a Pasha. 

The men at work dress in the slight manner of the ancient 
Egyptians; the women, however, wear garments covering 
them, and not seldom hide the face at our approach. But the 
material of their dress is not always of the best quality ; an 
old piece of sacking makes a very good garment for a Nubian 
woman. Most of them wear some trinkets, beads or bits of 
silver or carnelian round the neck, and heavy bracelets of 
horn. The boys have not yet come into their clothing, but 
the girls wear the leathern belt and fringe adorned with shells. 
The people have little, but they are not poor. It may be 
that this cornstalk house of our friend is only his winter 
residence, while his shadoof is most active, and that he has 
another establishment in town. There are too many sakiyas 



THE SNAKE-CHARMER. 265 

in operation for this region to be anything but prosperous, 
apparently. They are going all night as we sail along, and 
the screaming is weird enough in the stillness. I should 
think that a prisoner was being tortured every eighth of a 
mile on the bank. We are never out of hearing of their 
shrieks. But the cry is not exactly that of pain ; it is rather 
a song than a cry, with an impish squeak in it, and a monot- 
onous iteration of one idea, like all the songs here. It 
always repeats one sentence, which sounds like Iskander logheh- 
n-e-e-e-n — whatever it is in Arabic; and there is of course a 
story about it. The king, Alexander, had concealed under his 
hair two horns. Unable to keep the secret to himself he told 
it in confidence to the sakiya ; the sakiya couldn't hold the 
news, but shrieked out, "Alexander has two horns," and the 
other sakiyas got it ; and the scandal went the length of the 
Nile, and never can be hushed. 

The Arabs personify everything, and are as full of super- 
stitions as the Scotch ; peoples who have nothing in common 
except it may be that the extreme predestinationism of the 
one approaches the fatalism of the other — begetting in both a 
superstitious habit, which a similar cause produced in the 
Greeks. From talking of the sakiya we wander into stories 
illustrative of the credulity and superstition of the Egyptians. 
Charms and incantations are relied on for expelling diseases 
and warding off dangers. The snake-charmer is a person still 
in considerable request in towns and cities. Here in Nubia 
there is no need of his offices, for there are no snakes ; but 
in Lower Egypt, where snakes are common, the mud-walls 
and dirt-floors of the houses permit them to come in and 
be at home with the family. Even in Cairo, where the 
houses are of brick, snakes are much feared, and the house 
that is reputed to have snakes in it cannot be rented. It will 
stand vacant like an old mansion occupied by a ghost in 
a Christian country. The snake-charmers take advantage of 
this popular fear. 

Once upon a time when Abd-el-Atti was absent from the 
city, a snake-charmer came to his house, and told his sister 



266 ^ HOUSE FULL OF SNAKES. 

that he divined that there were snakes in the house. " My 
sister," the story goes on, " never see any snake to house, but 
she woman, and much 'fraid of snakes, and believe what him 
say. She told the charmer to call out the snakes. He set to 
work his mumble, his conjor — ('exorcism') yes, dat's it, 
exorcism 'em, and bring out a snake. She paid him one 
dollar. 

" Then the conjuror say, 'This the wife; the husband still 
in the house and make great trouble if he not got out.'" 

" He want him one pound for get the husband out, and my 
sister give it. 

" When I come home I find my sister very sick, very sick 
indeed, and I say what is it.^ She tell me the story that the 
house was full of snakes and she had a man call them out, 
but the fright make her long time ill. 

" I said, you have done very well to get the snakes out, what 
could we do with a house full of the nasty things ? And I 
said, I must get them out of another house I have — house I 
let him since to machinery. 

" Machinery 1 For what kind of machinery ! Steam-en- 
gines .? " 

" No, misheenary — have a school in it." 

"Oh, missionary." 

" Yes, let 'em have it for bout three hundred francs less than I 
get before. I think the school good for Cairo. I send for the 
snake-charmer, and I say I have 'nother house I think has 
snakes in it, and I ask him to divine and see. He comes back 
and says, my house is full of snakes, but he can charm them out. 
I say, good, I will pay you well. We appointed early next 
morning for the operation, and I agreed to meet the charmer at 
my house. I take with me big black fellow I have in the house,, 
strong like a bull. When we get there I find the charmer there 
in front of the house and ready to begin. But I propose that 
we go in the house, it might make disturbance to the neighbor- 
hood to call so many serpents out into the street. We go in, 
and I say, tell me the room of the most snakes. The charmer 
say, and as soon as we go in there, I make him sign the black 



A NOVEL WRIT OF EJECTMENT. 267 

fellow and he throw the charmer on the ground, and we tie him. 
with a rope. We find in his bosom thirteen snakes and scorpions. 
I tell him I had no idea there were so many snakes in my house. 
Then I had the fellow before the Kadi ; he had to pay back all 
the money he got from my sister and went to prison. But," added 
Abd-el-Atti, " the doctor did not pay back the money for my 
sister's illness." 

Alexandria' was the scene of another snake story. The owner 
of a house there had for tenants an Italian and his wife, whose 
lease had expired, but who would not vacate the premises. He 
therefore hired a snake-charmer to go to the house one day when 
the family were out, and leave snakes in two of the rooms. When 
the lady returned and found a snake in one room she fled into 
another, but there another serpent raised his head and hissed at 
her. She was dreadfully frightened, and sent for the charmer, 
and had the snakes called out but she declared that she wouldn't 
occupy such a house another minute. And the family moved 
out that day of their own accord. A novel writ of ejectment. 

In the morning we touched bottom as to cold weather, the 
thermometer at sunrise going down to 47''; it did, indeed, as we 
heard afterwards, go below 40"^. at Wady Haifa the next morning , 
but the days were sure to be warm enough. The morning is 
perfectly calm, and the depth of the blueness of the sky, espe- 
cially as seen over the yellow desert sand and the blackened 
surface of the sandstone hills, is extraordinary. An artist's 
representation of this color would be certain to be called an 
exaggeration. The skies of Lower Egypt are absolutely pale in 
comparison. 

Since we have been in the tropics, the quality of the sky has 
been the same day and night — sometimes a turquoise blue, such 
as on rare days we get in America through a break in the clouds, 
but exquisitely delicate for all its depth. We passed the Tropic 
of Cancer in the night, somewhere about Dendoor, and did not 
see it. I did not know, till afterwards, that there had been any 
trouble about it. But it seems that it has been moved from 
Assouan, where Strabo put it and some modern atlases still 
place it, southward, to a point just below the ruins of the temple 



268 OUR FRIENDS OF THE CORNSTALK HOUSE, 

of Dendoor, where Osiris and Isis were worshipped. Probably 
the temple, which is thought to be of the time of Augustus and 
consequently is little respected by any antiquarian, was not built 
with any reference to the Tropic of Cancer ; but the point of 
the turning of the sun might well have been marked by a tem- 
ple to the mysterious deity who personified the sun and who 
was slain and rose again. 

Our walk on shore to-day reminded us of a rugged path in 
Switzerland. Before we come to Kalkeh (which is of no account, 
except that it is in the great bend below Korosko) the hills of 
sandstone draw close to the east bank, in some places in sheer 
precipices, in others leaving a strip of sloping sand. Along the 
cliff is a narrow donkey-path, which travel for thousands of years 
has worn deep ; and we ascend along it high above the river. 
Wherever at the foot of the precipices there was a chance to 
grow a handful of beans or a hill of corn, we found the ground 
occupied. In one of these lonely recesses we made the acquain- 
tance of an Arab family. 

Walking rapidly, I saw something in the path, and held my 
foot just in time to avoid stepping upon a naked brown baby, 
rather black than brown, as a baby might be who spent his time 
outdoors in the sun without any umbrella. 

" By Jorge ! a nice plumpee little chile," cried Abd-el-Atti, who 
is fond of children, and picks up and shoulders the boy, who 
shows no signs of fear and likes the ride. 

We come soon upon his parents. The man was sitting on a 
rock smoking a pipe. The woman, dry and withered, was 
picking some green leaves and blossoms, of which she would 
presently make a sort oi puree ^ that appears to be a great part 
of the food of these people. They had three children. Their 
farm was a small piece of the sloping bank, and was in appearance 
exactly like a section of sandy railroad embankment grown to 
weeds. They had a few beans and some squash or pumpkin 
vines, and there were remains of a few hills of doora which had 
been harvested. 

While the dragoman talked with the family, I climbed up to 
their dwelling, in a ravine in the rocks. The house was of the 



THE PROPHET AND THE WALEE OF FEZ. 269 



simplest architecture — a circular stone enclosure, so loosely laid 
up that you could anywhere put your hand through it. Over 
a segment of this was laid some cornstalks, and under these the 
piece of matting was spread for the bed. That matting was the 
only furniture of the house. All their clothes the family had on 
them, and those were none too many — they didn't hold out to 
the boy. And the mercury goes down to 47'' these mornings! 
Before the opening of this shelter, was a place for a fire against 
the rocks, and a saucepan, water-jar, and some broken bottles 
The only attraction about this is its simplicity. Probably this is 
the country-place of the proprietor, where he retires for " shange 
of *air " during the season when his crops are maturing, and then 
moves into town under the palm-trees during the heat of summer. 

Talking about Mohammed (we are still walking by the shore) 
I found that Abd-el-Atti had never heard the legend of the 
miraculous suspension of the Prophet's coffin between heaven 
and earth; no Moslem ever believed any such thing; no Moslem 
ever heard of it. 

" Then there isn't any tradition or notion of that sort among 
Moslems?" 

" No, sir. Who said it .> " 

"Oh, it's often alluded to in English literature — by Mr- 
Carlyle for one, I think." 

"What for him say that? I tink he must put something in 
his book to make it sell. How could it? Every year since 
Mohammed died, pilgrims been make to his grave, where he 
buried in the ground; shawl every year carried to cover it; 
always buried in that place. No Moslem tink that," 

" Once a good man, a Walee of Fez, a friend of the Prophet, 
was visited by a vision and by the spirit of the Prophet, and 
he was gecited (excited) to go to Mecca and see him. When 
he was come near in the way, a messenger from the Prophet 
came to the Walee, and told him not to come any nearer; that 
he should die and be buried in the spot where he then was. 
And it was so. His tomb you see it there now before you 
come to Mecca. 

"When Mohammed was asked the reason why he would 



270 ^ MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. 

not permit the Walee to come to his tomb to see him, he said 
that the Walee was a great friend of his, and if he came to his 
tomb he should feel bound to rise and see him ; and he ought 
not to do that, for the time of the world was not yet fully 
come; if he rose from his tomb, it would be finish, the world 
would be at an end. Therefore he was 'bliged to refuse his 
friend. 

"Nobody doubt he buried in the ground. But Ali, differ- 
ent. All, the son-in-law of Mohammed (married his daughter 
Fat'meh, his sons Hasan and Hoseyii,) died in Medineh. 
When he died, he ordered that he should be put in a coffin, 
and said that in the morning there would come from the 
desert a man with a dromedary; that his coffin should be 
bound upon the back of the dromedary, and let go. In the 
morning, as was foretold, the man appeared, leading a drome- 
dary; his head was veiled except his eyes. The coffin was 
bound upon the back of the beast, and the three went away 
into the desert ; and no man ever saw either of them more, or 
knows, to this day, where Ali is buried. Whether it was a 
man or an angel with the dromedary, God knows ! " 

Getting round the great bend at Korosko and Amada is the 
most vexatious and difficult part of the Nile navigation. The 
distance is only about eight miles, but the river takes a freak 
here to run south-south-east, and as the wind here is usually 
north-north-west, the boat has both wind and current against 
it. But this is not all ; it is impossible to track on the west 
bank on account of the shallows and sandbars, and the channel 
on the east side is beset with dangerous rocks. We thought 
ourselves fortunate in making these eight miles in two days, and 
one of them was a very exciting day. The danger was in 
stranding the dahabeeh on the rocks, and being compelled to 
leave her; and our big boat was handled with great difficulty. 

Traders and travelers going to the Upper Nile leave the river 
at Korosko. Here begins the direct desert route — as utterly 
waste, barren and fatiguing as any in Africa — to Aboo Hamed, 
Sennaar and Kartoom. The town lies behind a fringe of palms 
on the river, and backed by high and savage desert mountains. 



FIXED! 2Y1 

As we pass we see on the high bank piles of merchandise and 
the white tents of the caravans. 

This is still the region of slavery. Most of the Arabs, poor as 
they appear, own one or two slaves, got from Sennaar or 
Darfoor — though called generally Nubians. We came across a 
Sennaar girl to day of perhaps ten years of age, hoeing alone in 
the field. The poor creature, whose ideas were as scant as her 
clothing, had only a sort of animal intelligence; she could speak 
a little Arabic, however (much more than we could — speaking 
of intelligence!) and said she did not dare come with us for fear 
her mistress would beat her. The slave trade is, however, 
greatly curtailed by the expeditions of the Khedive. The bright ' 
Abyssinian boy, Ahmed, whom we have on board, was brought 
from his home across the Red Sea by way of Mecca. This is 
one of the ways by which a few slaves still sift into Cairo. 

We are working along in sight of Korosko all day. Just 
above it, on some rocks in the channel, lies a handsome 
dahabeeh belonging to a party of English gentlemen, which 
went on a week ago; touched upon concealed rocks in the 
evening as the crew were tracking, was swung further on by the 
current, and now lies high and almost dry, the Nile falling 
daily, in a position where she must wait for the rise next 
summer. The boat is entirely uninjured and no doubt might 
have been got off the first day, if there had only been mechanical 
skill in the crew. The governor at Derr sent down one hundred 
and fifty men, who hauled and heaved at it two or three days, 
with no effect. Half a dozen Yankees, with a couple of jack- 
screws, and probably with only logs for rollers, would have set it 
afloat. The disaster is exceedingly annoying to the gentlemen, 
who have, however, procured a smaller boat from Wady Haifa 
in which to continue their voyage. We are several hours in 
getting past these two boats, and accomplish it not without a 
tangling of rigging, scraping off of paint, smashing of deck rails, 
and the expenditure of a whole dictionary of Arabic. Our 
Arabs never see but one thing at a time. If they are getting 
the bow free, the stay-ropes and stern must take care of 
themselves. If, by simple heedlessness, we are letting the yard 



272 PICTURE OF A DANDY PILOT. 

of another boat rip into our rigging, God wills it. While we are 
in this confusion and excitement, the dahabeeh of General 
McClellan and half a dozen in company, sweep down past us, 
going with wind and current. 

It is a bright and delicious Sunday morning that we are still 
tracking above Korosko. To-day is the day the pilgrims to 
Mecca spend upon the mountain of Arafat. Tomorrow they 
sacrifice ; our crew will celebrate it by killing a sheep and eating 
it — and it is difficult to see where the sacrifice comes in for 
them. The Moslems along this shore lost their reckoning, 
mistook the day, and sacrificed yesterday. 

This is not the only thing, however, that keeps this place in 
our memory. We saw here a pretty woman. Considering her 
dress, hair, the manner in which she had been brought up, and 
her looks, a tolerably pretty woman ; a raving beauty in com- 
parison with her comrades. She has a slight cast, in one 
eye, that only shows for a moment occasionally and then 
disappears. If these feeble tributary lines ever meet that eye, I 
beg her to know that, by reason of her slight visual defect, she 
is like a revolving light, all the more brilliant when she flashes 
out. 

We lost time this morning, were whirled about in eddies and 
drifted on sandbars, owing to contradictory opinions among our 
navigators, none of whom seem to have the least sconce. They 
generally agree, however, not to do anything that the pilot 
orders. Our pilot from Philse to Wady Haifa and back, is a 
Barabra, and one of the reises of the Cataract, a fellow very tall, 
and thin as a hoop-pole, with a withered face and a high 
forehead. His garments a white cotton nightgown without 
sleeves, a brown over-gown with flowing sleeves, both reaching 
to the ankles, and a white turban. He is barefooted and 
barelegged, and, in his many excursions into the river to explore 
sandbars, I have noticed a hole where he has stuck his knee 
through his nightgown. His stature and his whole bearing 
have in them something, I know not what, of the theatrical air 
of the Orient. 

He had a quarrel to day with the crew, for the reason 



FIGURATIVE ACTS OF GRIEF. 273 

mentioned above, in which he was no doubt quite right, a 
quarrel conducted as usual with an extraordinary expense of 
words and vituperation. In his inflamed remarks, he at length 
threw out doubts about the mother of one of the crew, and 
probably got something back that enraged him still more. 
While the wrangle went on, the crew had gathered about their 
mess-dish on the forward deck, squatting in a circle round it, 
and dipping out great mouthfuls of the puree with the right 
hand. The pilot paced the upper deck, and his voice, which is 
like that of many waters, was lifted up in louder and louder 
lamentations, as the other party grew more quiet and were 
occupied with their dinner — throwing him a loose taunt now 
and then, followed by a chorus of laughter. He strode back 
and forth, swinging his arms, and declaring that he would leave 
the boat, that he would not stay where he was so treated, that 
he would cast himself into the river. 

"When you do, you'd better leave your clothes behind," 
suggested Abd-el-Atti. 

Upon this cruel sarcasm he was unable to contain himself 
longer. He strode up and down, raised high his voice, and tore 
his hair and rent his garments — the supreme act of Oriental 
desperation. I had often read of this performance, both in the 
Scriptures and in other Oriental writings, but I had never seen 
it before. The manner in which he tore his hair and rent his 
garments was as follows, to wit : — He almost entirely unrolled 
his turban, doing it with an air of perfect recklessness; and then 
he carefully wound it again round his smoothly-shaven head. 
That stood for tearing his hair. He then swung his long arms 
aloft, lifted up his garment above his head, and with desperate 
force, appeared to be about to rend it in twain. But he never 
started a seam nor broke a thread. The nightgown wouldn't 
have stood much nonsense. 

In the midst of his most passionate outburst, he went forward 
and filled his pipe, and then returned to his tearing and rending 
and his lamentations. The picture of a strong man in grief is 
always touching. 

The country along here is very pretty, the curved shore for 

18 



274 NUBIAN 'BEAUTY.' 



miles being a continual palm-grove, and having a considerable 
strip of soil which the sakiya irrigation makes very productive. 
Beyond this rise mountains of rocks in ledges; and when we 
climb them we see only a waste desert of rock strewn with loose 
shale and, further inland, black hills of sandstone, which thickly 
cover the country all the way to the Red Sea. 

Under the ledges are the habitations of the people, square 
enclosures of stone and clay of considerable size, with interior 
- courts and kennels. One of them — the only sign of luxury we 
have seen in Nubia — had a porch in front of it covered with 
palm boughs. The men are well-made and rather prepossessing 
in appearance, and some of them well-dressed — they had no 
doubt made the voyage to Cairo; the women are hideous with- 
out exception. It is no pleasure to speak thus continually of 
woman; and I am sometimes tempted to say that I see here the 
brown and bewitching maids, with the eyes of the gazelle and 
the form of the houri, which gladden the sight of more fortunate 
voyagers through this idle land ; but when I think of the heavy 
amount of misrepresentation that would be necessary to give any 
one of these creatures a reputation for good looks abroad, I 
shrink from the undertaking. 

They are decently covered with black cotton mantles, which 
they make a show of drawing over the face ; but they are perhaps 
wild rather than modest, and have a sort of animal shyness. 
Their heads are sights to behold. The hair is all braided in 
strings, long at the sides and cut off in front, after the style 
adopted now-a-days for children (and women) in civilized 
countries, and copied from the young princes, prisoners in the 
Tower. Each round strand of hair has a dab of clay on the end 
of it. The whole is drenched with castor-oil, and when the sun 
shines on it, it is as pleasant to one sense as to another. They 
have flattish noses, high cheek-bones, and always splendid teeth ; 
and they all, young girls as well as old women, hold tobacco in 
their under lip and squirt out the juice with placid and scientific • 
accuracy. They wear two or three strings of trumpery beads and 
necklaces, bracelets of horn and of greasy leather, and occasion- 
ally a finger-ring or two. Nose-rings they wear if they have 



ENSURING A FORTUNATE LIFE. 275 

them ; if not, they keep the bore open for one by inserting a 
kernel of doora. 

In going back to the boat we met a party of twenty or thirty 
of these attractive creatures, who were returning from burying a 
boy of the village. They came striding over the sand, chat- 
tering in shrill and savage tones. Grief was not so weighty on 
them that they forgot to demand backsheesh, and (unrestrained 
by the men in the town) their clamor for it was like the cawing 
of crows; and their noise, when they received little from us, 
was worse. The tender and loving woman, stricken in grief by 
death, is, in these regions, when denied backsheesh, an enraged, 
. squawking bird of prey. They left us with scorn in their eyes 
;and abuse on their tongues. 

At a place below Korosko we saw a singular custom, in 
■which the women appeared to better advantage. A whole troop 
of women, thirty or forty of them, accompanied by children, 
came in a rambling procession down to the Nile, and brought a 
baby just forty, days old. We thought at first that they were 
about to dip the infant into Father Nile, as an introduction to 
the fountain of all the blessings of Egypt. Instead of this, 
however, they sat down on the bank, took kohl and daubed it in 
the little fellow's eyes. They perform this ceremony by the 
Nile when the boy is forty days old, and they do it that he may 
have a fortunate life. Kohl seems to enlarge the pupil, and 
doubtless it is intended to open the boy's eyes early. 

At one of the little settlements to-day the men were very 
hospitable, and brought us out plates (straw) of sweet dried 
dates. Those that we did not eat, the sailor with us stuffed 
into his pocket ; our sailors never let a chance of provender 
slip, and would, so far as capacity " to live on the country " goes, 
make good soldiers. The Nubian dates are called the best in 
Egypt. They are longer than the dates of the Delta, but hard 
and quite dry. They take the place of coffee here in the 
complimentary hospitality. Whenever a native invites you to 
take " coffee," and you accept, he will bring you a plate of dates 
and probably a plate of popped doora, like our popped corn. 
Coffee seems not to be in use here; even the governors entertain 
us with dates and popped corn. 



2Y6 A BARBARIC PICTURE. 

We are working up the river slowly enough to make the 
acquaintance of every man, woman, and child on the banks ; 
and a precious lot of acquaintances we shall have. I have no 
desire to force them upon the public, but it is only by these 
details that I can hope to give you any idea of the Nubian life. 

We stop at night. The moon-and-starlight is something 
superb. From the high bank under which we are moored, the 
broad river, the desert opposite, and the mountains, appear in a 
remote African calm — a calm only broken by the shriek of 
the sakiyas which pierce the air above and below us. 

In the sakiya near us, covered with netting to keep oflf the 
north wind, is a little boy, patient and black, seated on the 
pole of the wheel, urging the lean cattle round and round. 
The little chap is alone and at some distance from the village, 
and this must be for him lonesome work. The moonlight, 
through the chinks of the palm-leaf, touches tenderly his 
pathetic figure, when we look in at the opening, and his small 
voice utters the one word of Egypt — " backsheesh." 

Attracted by a light — a rare thing in a habitation here — we 
walk over to the village. At the end of the high enclosure of a 
dwelling there is a blaze of fire, which is fed by doora-stalks, 
and about it squat five women, chattering; the fire lights up 
their black faces and hair shining with the castor-oil. Four 
of them are young; and one is old and skinny, and with only 
a piece of sacking for all clothing. Their husbands are away 
in Cairo, or up the river with a trading dahabeeh (so they tell 
our guide); and these poor creatures are left here (it may be 
for years it may be for ever) to dig their own living out of the 
ground. It is quite the fashion husbands have in this country ; 
but the women are attached to their homes; they have no 
desire to go elsewhere. And I have no doubt that in Cairo 
they would pine for the free and simple life of Nubia. 

These women all want backsheesh, and no doubt will 
quarrel over the division of the few piastres they have from 
us. Being such women as I have described, and using 
tobacco as has been sufficiently described also, crouching 
about these embers, this group composes as barbaric a picture 



''PIGVILLE" IN NUBIA. 



277 



as one can anywhere see. I need not have gone so far to see 
such a miserable group ; I could have found one as wretched 
in Pigville (every city has its Pigville) ? Yes, but this is 
characteristic of the country. These people are as good as 
anybody here. (We have been careful to associate only with 
the first families.) These women have necklaces and bracelets, 
and rings in their ears, just like any women, and rings in the 
hair, twisted in with the clay and castor-oil. And in Pigville 
one would not have the range of savage rocks, which tower 
above these huts, whence the jackals, wolves, and gazelles 
come down to the river, nor the row of palms, nor the Nile, 
and the sands beyond, yellow in the moonlight. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



LIFE IN THE TROPICS. WADY HALFA. 



OURS is the crew to witch the world with noble sea- 
manship. It is like a first-class orchestra, in which all 
the performers are artists. Ours are all captains. The 
reis is merely an elder brother. The pilot is not heeded at 
all. With so many intentions on board, it is an hourly 
miracle that we get on at all. 

We are approaching the capital of Nubia, trying to get 
round a sharp bend in the river, with wind adverse, current 
rapid, sandbars on all sides. Most of the crew are in the 
water ahead, trying to haul us round the point of a sand-spit 
on which the stream foams, and then swirls in an eddy below. 
I can see now the Pilot, the long Pilot, who has gone in to 
feel about for deep water, in his white nightgown, his shaven 
head, denuded of its turban, shining in the sun, standing in 
two feet of water, throwing his arms wildly above his head, 
screaming entreaties, warnings, commands, imprecations upon 
the sailors in the river and the commanders oh the boat. I 
can see the crew, waist deep, slacking the rope which they 
have out ahead, stopping to discuss the situation. I can see 
the sedate reis on the bow arguing with the raving pilot, the 
steersman, with his eternal smile, calmly regarding the peril, 
and the boat swinging helplessly about and going upon the 
shoals. "Stupids," mutters Abd-el-Atti, who is telling his 
beads rapidly, as he always does in exciting situations. 

When at length we pass the point, we catch the breeze so 
suddenly and go away with it, that there is no time for the 

278 



MID NIGH T BEA UT Y. 279 



men to get on board, and they are obliged to scamper back 
over the sand-spits to the shore and make a race of it to meet 
us at Derr. We can see them' running in file, dodging along 
under the palms by the shore, stopping to grab occasionally a 
squash or a handful of beans for the pot. 

The capital of Nubia is the New York of this region, not so 
large, nor so well laid out, nor so handsomely built, but the 
centre of fashion and the residence of the ton. The governor 
lives in a whitewashed house, and there is a Sycamore here 
eight hundred years old, which is I suppose older than the 
Stuyvesant Pear in New York. The houses are not perched 
up in the air like tenement buildings for the poor, but aristo- 
cratically keep to the ground in one-story rooms ; and they 
are beautifully moulded of a tough clay. The whole town 
lies under a palm-grove. The elegance of the capital, how- 
ever, is not in its buildings, but in its women ; the ladies who 
come to the the river to fill their jars are arrayed in the height 
of the mode. Their hair is twisted and clayed and castor- 
oiled, but, besides this and other garments, they wear an outer 
robe of black which sweeps the ground for a yard behind, and 
gives them the grace and dignity that court-robes always 
give. You will scarcely see longer skirts on Broadway or in 
a Paris salon. I have, myself, no doubt that the Broadway 
fashions came from Derr, all except the chignons. Here the 
ladies wear their own hair. 

Making no landing in this town so dangerous to one 
susceptible to the charms of fashion, we went on, and stopped 
at night near Ibreem, a lofty precipice, or range of precipices, 
the southern hill crowned with ruins and fortifications which 
were last occupied by the Memlooks, half a century and more 
ago. The night blazed with beauty ; the broad river was a 
smooth mirror, in which the mountains and the scintillating 
hosts of heaven were reflected. And we saw a phenomenon 
which I have never seen elsewhere. Not only were the rocky 
ledges reproduced in a perfect definition of outline, but even 
in the varieties of shade, in black and reddish-brown color. 

Perhaps it needs the affidavits of all the party to the more 



280 THE SOUTHERN CROSS. 

surprising fact, that we were all on deck next morning before 
five o'clock, to see the Southern Cross. The moon had set, 
and these famous stars of the southern sky flashed color and 
brilliancy like enormous diamonds. " Other worlds than 
ours"? I should think so! All these myriads of burning 
orbs only to illuminate our dahabeeh and a handful of Nubians, 
who are asleep! The Southern Cross lay just above the 
horizon and not far from other stars of the first quality. 
There are I believe only three stars of the first magnitude and 
one of the second, in this constellation, and they form, in fact, 
not a cross but an irregular quadrilateral. It needs a vivid 
imagination and the aid of small stars to get even a semblance 
of a cross out of it. But if you add to it, as we did, for the 
foot of the cross, a brilliant in a neighboring constellation, 
you have a noble cross. 

This constellation is not so fine as Orion, and for all we 
saw, we would not exchange our northern sky for the 
southern; but this morning we had a rare combination. The 
Morning Star was blazing in the east ; and the Great Bear 
(who has been nightly sinking lower and lower, until he dips 
below the horizon) having climbed high up above the Pole in 
the night, filled the northern sky with light. In this lucid 
atmosphere the whole heavens from north to south seemed to 
be crowded with stars of the first size. 

During the morning we walked on the west bank through 
a castor-oil plantation ; many of the plants were good-sized 
trees, with boles two and a half to three inches through, and 
apparently twenty-five feet high. They were growing in the 
yellow sand which had been irrigated by sakiyas, but was 
then dry, and some of the plants were wilting. We picked 
up the ripe seeds and broke off some of the fat branches; and 
there was not water enough in the Nile to wash away the 
odor afterwards. 

Walking back over the great sand-plain towards the range 
of desert mountains, we came to an artificial mound — an 
ash-heap, in fact — fifty or sixty feet high. At its base is a 
habitation of several compartments, formed by sticking the 



DOING JUSTICE ON A THIEF. 281 

Stalks of castor-oil plants into the ground, with a roof of the 
same. Here we found several women with very neat dabs of 
clay on the ends of their hair-twists, and a profusion of 
necklaces, rings in the hair and other ornaments — among 
them, scraps of gold. The women were hospitable, rather 
modest than shy, and set before us plates of dried dates ; and 
no one said "backsheesh," A better class of people than 
those below, and more purely Nubian. 

It would perhaps pay to dig open this mound. Near it are 
three small oases, watered by sakiyas, which draw from Wells 
that are not more than twenty feet deep. The water is clear as 
crystal but not cool. These are ancient Egyptian wells, which 
have been re-opened within a few years ; and the ash-mound is 
no doubt the d^ris of a village and an old Egyptian settlement. 

At night we are a dozen miles from Aboo Simbel (Ipsamboul), 
the wind — which usually in the winter blows with great and steady 
force from the north in this part of the river — having taken a 
fancy to let us see the country. 

A morning walk takes us over a rocky desert ; the broken shale 
is distributed as evenly over the sand as if the whole had once 
been under water, and the shale were a dried mud, cracked in 
the sun. The miserable dwellings of the natives are under the 
ledges back of the strip of arable land. The women are shy and 
wild as hawks, but in the mode ; they wear a profusion of glass 
beads and trail their robes in the dust. 

It is near this village that we have an opportunity to execute 
justice. As the crew were tracking, and lifting the rope over a 
sakiya, the hindmost sailor saw a sheath-knife on the bank, 
and thrust it into his pocket as he walked on. In five minutes 
the owner of the knife discovered the robbery, and came to the 
boat to complain. The sailor denied having the knife, but upon 
threat of a flogging gave it up. The incident, however, aroused 
the town, men and women came forth discussing it in a high 
key, and some foolish fellows threatened to stone our boat. Abd- 
el-Atti replied that he would stop and give them a chance to do 
it. Thereupon they apologized; and, as there was no wind, 
the dragoman asked leave to stop and do justice. 



282 ABD-EL-ATTI'S COURT. 

A court was organized onshore. Abd-el-Atti sat down on a 
lump of earth, grasping a marline-spike, the crew squatted in a 
circle in the high beans, and the culprit was arraigned. The 
owner testified to his knife, a woman swore she saw the sailor 
take it, Abd-el-Atti pronounced sentence, and rose to execute 
it with his stake. The thief was thrown upon the ground and 
held by two sailors. Abd-el-Atti, resolute and solemn as an 
executioner, raised the club and brought it down with a tremen- 
dous whack — not however upon the back of the victim, he had 
at that instant squirmed out of the way. This conduct greatly 
enraged the minister of justice, who thereupon came at his object 
with fury, and would no doubt have hit him if the criminal had 
not got up and ran, screaming, with the sailors and Abd-el- 
Atti after him. The ground was rough, the legs of Abd-el-Atti 
are not long and his wind is short. The fellow was caught, and 
escaped again and again, but the punishment was a mere scrim- 
mage; whenever Abd-el-Atti, in the confusion, could get a 
chance to strike he did so, but generally hit the ground, some- 
times the fellow's gown and perhaps once or twice the man inside, 
but never to his injury. He roared all the while, that he was no 
thief, and seemed a good deal more hurt by the charge that he 
was, than by the stick. The beating was, in short, only a farce 
laughable from beginning to end, and not a bad sample of 
Egyptian justice. And it satisfied everybody. 

Having put ourselves thus on friendly relations with this 
village, one of the inhabitants brought down to the boat a letter 
for the dragoman to interpret. It had been received two weeks 
before from Alexandria, but no one had been able to read it 
until our boat stopped here. Fortunately Ave had the above 
little difficulty here. The contents of the letter gave the village 
employment for a month. It brought news of the death of two 
inhabitants of the place, who were living as servants in Alexan- 
dria, one of them a man eighty years old and his son aged sixty. 

I never saw grief spread so fast and so suddenly as it did with 
the uncorking of this vial of bad news. Instantly a lamenta- 
tion and wild mourning began in all the settlement. It wasn't 
ten minutes before the village was buried in grief. And, in an 



NUBIANS MOURNING FOR THE DEAD. 283- 

incredible short space of time, the news had spread up and down 
the river, and the grief-stricken began to arrive from other places. 
Where they came from, I have no idea; it did not seem that we 
had passed so many women in a week as we saw now. They 
poured in from all along the shore, long strings of them, striding, 
over the sand, throwing up their garments, casting dust on their 
heads (and all of it stuck), howling, flocking like wild geese to a 
rendezvous, and filling the air with their clang. They were 
arriving for an hour or two. 

The men took no part in this active demonstration. They 
were seated gravely before the honse in which the bereaved 
relatives gathered ; and there I found Abd-el-Atti, seated also,, 
and holding forth upon the inevitable coming of death, and 
saying that there was nothing to be regretted in this case, for the 
time of these men had come. If it hadn't come, they wouldn't 
have died. Not so? 

The women crowded into the enclosure and began mourning 
in a vigorous manner. The chief ones grouping themselves 
in an irregular ring, cried aloud : " O that he had died here ! " 
" O that I had seen his face when he died ; " repeating these 
lamentations over and over again, throwing up the arms,, 
and then the legs in a kind of barbaric dance as they lamented, 
and uttering long and shrill ululations at the end of eacK 
sentence. 

To-day they kill a calf and feast, and tomorrow the lamenta- 
tions and the African dance will go on, and continue for a week. 
These people are all feeling. It is a heathen and not a Moslem 
custom however; and whether it is of negro origin or of ancient 
Egyptian I do not know, but probably the latter. The ancient 
Egyptian women are depicted in the tombs mourning in this, 
manner; and no doubt the Jews also so bewailed, when they 
** lifted up their voices " and cast dust on their heads, as we saw 
these Nubians do. It is an unselfish pleasure to an Eastern 
woman to " lift up the voice." The heavy part of the mourning 
comes upon the women, who appear to enjoy it. It is their chief 
occupation, after the carrying of water and the grinding of doora, 
and probably was so with the old race ; these people certainly keep 



'284: UR JO URNE Y'S END. 

the ancient customs ; they dress the hair, for one thing, very 
inuch as the Egyptians did, even to the castor-oil. 

At this village, as in others in Nubia, the old women are the 
corn-grinders. These wasted skeletons sit on the ground before 
.a stone with a hollow in it; in this they bruise the doora with a 
smaller stone ; the flour is then moistened and rubbed to a paste. 
Tlie girls and younger women, a great part of the time, are idling 
about in their finery. But, then, they have the babies and the 
water to bring ; and it must be owned that some of them work in 
the field — grubbing grass and stuff for "greens " and for fuel, 
more than the men. The men do the heavy work of irrigation. 

But we cannot stay to mourn with those who mourn a 
week in this style; and in the evening, when a strong breeze 
springs up, we spread our sail and go, in the " daylight 
of the moon," flying up the river, by black and weird shores; 
and before midnight pass lonesome Aboo Simbel, whose 
colossi sit in the moonlight with the impassive mien they 
-have held for so many ages. 

In the morning, with an easy wind, we are on the last stage 
of our journey. We are almost at the limit of dahabeeh 
navigation. The country is less interesting than it was below. 
The river is very broad, and we look far over the desert on 
each side. The strip of cultivated soil is narrow and now and 
again disappears alogether. To the east are seen, since we 
passed Aboo Simbel, the pyramid hills, some with truncated 
tops, scattered without plan over the desert. It requires no 
stretch of fancy to think that these mathematically built hills 
are pyramids erected by races anterior to Menes, and that all 
this waste that they dot is a necropolis of that forgotten 
people. 

The sailors celebrate the finishing of the journey by a 
ceremony of state and dignity. The chief actor is Farrag, the 
wit of the crew. Suddenly he appears as the Governor of 
Wady Haifa, with horns on his head, face painted, a long 
beard, hair sprinkled with flour, and dressed in shaggy sheep- 
skin. He has come on board to collect his taxes. He opens 
-his court, with the sailors about him, holding a long marline- 



A COMICAL CELEBRATION. 285' 

spike which he pretends to smoke as a chibook. His imitation 
of the town dignitaries along the river is very comical, and 
his remarks are greeted with roars of laughter. One of the 
crew acts as his bailiff and summons all the officers and 
servants of the boat before him, who are thrown down upon 
the deck and bastinadoed, and released on payment of back- 
sheesh. The travelers also have to go before the court and 
pay a fine for passing through the Governor's country. The 
Governor is treated with great deference till the end of the 
farce, when one of his attendants sets fire to his beard, and 
another puts him out with a bucket of water. 

The end of our journey is very much like the end of 
everything else — there is very little in it. When we follow 
anything to its utmost we are certain to be disappointed — 
simply because it is the nature of things to taper down to a 
point, I suspect it must always be so with the traveler, and 
that the farther he penetrates into any semi-savage continent, 
the meaner and ruder will he find the conditions of life. 
When we come to the end, ought we not to expect the end > 

We have come a thousand miles not surely to see Wady 
Haifa but to see the thousand miles. And yet Wady Haifa, 
figuring as it does on the map, the gate of the great Second 
Cataract, the head of navigation, the destination of so many 
eager travelers, a point of arrival and departure of caravans^ 
might be a little less insignificant than it is. There is the 
thick growth of palm-trees under which the town lies, and 
beyond it, several miles, on the opposite, west bank, is the 
cliflf of Aboosir, which looks down upon the cataract ; but for 
this noble landmark, this dominating rock, the traveler could 
not feel that he had arrived anywhere, and would be so 
weakened by the shock of arriving nowhere at the end of so 
long a journey (as a man is by striking a blow in the air) that 
he would scarcely have strength to turn back. 

At the time of our arrival, however, Wady Haifa has some 
extra life. An expedition of the government is about to start 
for Darfoor. When we moor at the east bank, we see on the 
west bank the white tents of a military encampment set in 



286 THE MARCH OF CIVILIZA TION. 



right lines on the yellow sand ; near them the government 
storehouse and telegraph-office, and in front a mounted 
howitzer and a Gatling gun. No contrast could be stronger. 
Here is Wady Halfah, in the doze of an African town, a 
collection of mud-huts under the trees, listless, apathetic, 
sitting at the door of a vast region, without either purpose or 
ambition. There, yonder, is a piece of life out of our restless 
age. There are the tents, the guns, the instruments, the 
soldiers and servants of a new order of things for Africa. 
We hear the trumpet call to drill. The flag which is planted 
in the sand in front of the commander's tent is to be borne to 
the equator. 

But this is not a military expedition. It is a corps of 
scientific observation, simply. Since the Sultan of Darfoor 
is slain and the Khedive's troops have occupied his capital, 
and formally attached that empire to Egypt, it is necessary to 
know something of its extent, resources, and people, con- 
cerning all of which we have only the uncertain reports of 
traders. It is thought by some that the annexation of 
Darfoor adds five millions to the population of the Khedive's 
growing empire. In order that he may know what he has 
conquered, he has sent out exploring expeditions, of which 
this is one. It is under command of Purdy Bey assisted by 
Lieutenant-Colonel Mason, two young American officers of 
the Khedive, who fought on opposite sides in our civil war. 
They are provided with instruments for making all sorts of 
observations, and are to report upon the people and the 
physical character and capacity of the country. They expect 
to be absent three years, and after surveying Darfoor, will 
strike southward still, and perhaps contribute something to 
the solution of the Nile problem. For escort they have a 
hundred soldiers only, but a large train of camels and 
attendants. In its purpose it is an expedition that any 
civilized ruler might be honored for setting on foot. It is a 
brave overture of civilization to barbarism. The nations are 
daily drawing nearer together. As we sit in the telegraph- 
office here, messages are flashed from Cairo to Kartoom. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



APPROACHING THE SECOND CATARACT. 

THERE are two ways of going to see the Second Cata- 
ract and the cliff of Aboosir, which is about six miles 
above Wady Haifa; one is by small boat, the other by 
dromedary over the desert. We chose the latter, and the 
American officers gave us a mount and their company also. 
Their camp presented a lively scene when we crossed over to 
it in the morning. They had by requisition pressed into their 
service three or four hundred camels, and were trying to 
select out of the lot half a dozen fit to ride. The camels 
were, in fact, mostly burden camels and not trained to the 
riding-saddle; besides, half of them were poor, miserable 
rucks of bones, half-starved to death; for the Arabs, whose 
business it had been to feed them, had stolen the government 
supplies. An expedition which started south two weeks ago 
lost more than a hundred camels, from starvation, before it 
reached Semneh, thirty-five miles up the river. They had 
become so weak, that they wilted and died on the first hard 
march. For his size and knotty appearance, the camel is the 
most disappointing of beasts. He is a sheep as to endurance. 
As to temper, he is vindictive. 

Authorities differ in regard to the distinction between the 
camel and the dromedary. Some say that there are no 
camels in Egypt, that they are all dromedaries, having one 
hump; and that the true camel is the Bactrian, which has 
two humps. It is customary here, however, to call those 
camels which are beasts of burden, and those dromedaries 
which are trained to ride ; the distinction being that between 
the cart-horse and the saddle-horse. 

287 



288 PLEASURES OF CAMEL-RIDING. 

The camel-drivers, who are as wild Arabs as you will meet 
anywhere, select a promising beast and drag him to the tent. 
He is reluctant to come; he rebels against the saddle; he 
roars all the time it is being secured on him, and when he is 
forced to kneel, not seldom he breaks away from his keepers 
and shambles off into the desert. The camel does this 
always ; and every morning on a march he receives his load 
only after a struggle. The noise of the drivers is little less 
than the roar of the beasts, and with their long hair, shaggy 
breasts, and bare legs they are not less barbarous in appearance- 
Mounting the camel is not difficult, but it has some sweet 
surprises for the novice. The camel lies upon the ground with 
all his legs shut up under him like a jackknife. You seat 
yourself in the broad saddle, and cross your legs in front of the 
pommel. Before you are ready, something like a private earth- 
quake begins under you. The camel raises his hindquarters 
suddenly, and throws you over upon his neck ; and, before you 
recover from that he straightens up his knees and gives you a 
jerk over his tail; and, while you are not at all certain what has 
happened, he begins to move off with that dislocated walk 
which sets you into a see-saw motion, a weaving backwards and 
forwards in the capacious saddle. Not having a hinged back 
fit for this movement, you lash the beast with your koorbash to 
make him change his gait. He is nothing loth to do it, and at 
once starts into a high trot which sends you a foot into the air 
at every step, bobs you from side to side, drives your backbone 
into your brain, and makes castanets of youj teeth. Capital 
exercise. When you have enough of it, you pull up, and 
humbly enquire what is the heathen method of riding a drome- 
dary. 

It is simple enough. Shake the loose halter-rope (he has 
neither bridle nor bit) against his neck as you swing the whip, 
and the animal at once swings into an easy pace; that is, a 
pretty easy pace, like that of a rocking-horse. But everything 
depends upon the camel. I happened to mount one that it 
was a pleasure to ride, after I brought him to the proper gait. 
We sailed along over the smooth sand, with level keel, and 



PROSPECT FROM THE ROCK ABOOSIR. 289 

(though the expression is not nautical) on cushioned feet. But 
it is hard work for the camel, this constant planting of his 
spongy feet in the yielding sand. 

Our way lay over the waste and rolling desert (the track of 
the southern caravans,) at some little distance from the river; 
and I suppose six miles of this travel are as good as a hundred. 
The sun was blazing hot, the yellow sand glowed in it, and the 
far distance of like sand and bristling ledges of black rock 
shimmered in waves of heat. No tree, no blade of grass, nothing 
but blue sky bending over a sterile land. Yet, how sweet was 
the air, how pure the breath of the desert, how charged with, 
electric life the rays of the sun ! 

The rock Aboosir, the ultima Thule of pleasure-travel on the 
Nile, is a sheer precipice of perhaps two to three hundred feet 
above the Nile ; but this is high enough to make it one of the 
most extensive lookouts in Egypt. More desert can be seen 
here than from almost anywhere else. The Second Cataract 
is spread out beneath us. It is less a "fall" even than the 
First. The river is from a half mile to a mile in breadth and for 
a distance of some five miles is strewn with trap-rock, boulders 
and shattered fragments, through which the Nile swiftly forces 
itself in a hundred channels. There are no falls of any notice- 
able height. Here, on the flat rock, where we eat our luncheon, 
a cool breeze blows from the north. Here on this eagle's 
perch, commanding a horizon of desert and river for a hundred 
miles, fond visitors have carved their immortal names, following 
an instinct of ambition that is wellnigh universal, in the belief 
no doubt that the name will have for us who come after all the 
significance it has in the eyes of him who carved it. But I 
cannot recall a single name I read there; I am sorry that I 
cannot, for it seems a pitiful and cruel thing to leave them there 
in their remote obscurity. 

From this rock we look with longing to the southward, into 
vast Africa, over a land we may not further travel, which we 
shall probably never see again ; on the far horizon the blue 
peaks of Dongola are visible, and beyond these we know are the 
ruins of Meroe, that ancient city, the capital of that Ethiopian 



290 SIGNS OF WEALTH. 

Queen, Candace, whose dark face is lighted up by a momentary 
gleam from the Scriptures. On the beach at Wady Haifa are 
half a dozen trading-vessels, loaded with African merchandise 
for Cairo, and in the early morning there is a great hubbub 
among the merchants and the caravan owners. A sudden 
dispute arises among a large group around the ferry-boat, and 
there ensues that excited war, or movement, which always 
threatens to come to violence in the East but never does; 
Niagaras of talk are poured out ; the ebb and flow of the parti- 
colored crowd, and the violent and not ungraceful gestures 
make a singular picture. 

Bales of merchandise are piled on shore, cases of brandy and 
cottons from England, to keep the natives of Soudan warm 
inside and out; Greek merchants splendid in silk attire, are 
lounging amid their goods, slowly bargaining for their transport- 
ation. Groups of camels are kneeling on the sand with their 
Bedaween drivers. These latter are of the Bisharee Arabs, and 
free sons of the desert. They wear no turban, and their only 
garment is a long strip of brown cotton thrown over the shoulder 
so as to leave the right arm free, and then wound about the 
waist and loins. The black hair is worn long, braided in 
strands which shine with oil, and put behind the ears. This 
sign of effeminacy is contradicted by their fine, athletic figures; 
by a bold, strong eye, and a straight, resolute nose. 

Wady Haifa {wady is valley, and half a is a sort of coarse 
grass) has a post-office and a mosque, but no bazaar, nor any 
center of attraction. Its mud-houses are stretched along the 
shore for a mile and a half, and run back into the valley, under 
the lovely palm-grove ; but there are no streets and no roads 
through the deep sand. There is occasionally a sign of wealth 
in an extensive house, that is, one consisting of several enclosed 
courts and apartments within one large mud-wall; and in one 
we saw a garden, watered by a sakiya, and two latticed windows 
in a second story looking on it, as if some one had a harem 
here which was handsome enough to seclude. 

We called on the Kadi, the judicial officer of this district, 
whose house is a specimen of the best, and as good as is needed 



A NUBIAN BELLE. 291 



in this land of the sun. On one side of an open enclosure is his 
harem ; in the other is the reception-room where he holds court. 
This is a mud-hut, with nothing whatever in it except some 
straw mats. The Kadi sent for rugs, and we sat on the mud- 
bench outside, while attendants brought us dates, popped-corn, 
and even coffee ; and then they squatted in a row in front of us 
and stared at us, as we did at them. The ladies went into the 
harem, and made the acquaintance of the judge's one wife and his 
dirty children. Not without cordiality and courtesy of manner 
these people ; but how simple are the terms of life here ; and 
what a thoroughly African picture this is, the mud-huts, the 
sand, the palms, the black-skinned groups. 

The women here are modestly clad, but most of them fright- 
fully ugly and castor-oily; yet we chanced upon two handsome 
girls, or rather married women, of fifteen or sixteen. One of 
them had regular features and a very pretty expression, and 
evidently knew she was a beauty, for she sat apart on the ground, 
keeping her head covered most of the time, and did not join the 
women who thronged about us to look with wonder at the cos- 
tume of our ladies and to beg for backsheesh. She was loaded 
with necklaces, bracelets of horn and ivory, and had a ring on 
every finger. There was in her manner something of scorn and 
resentment at our intrusion; she no doubt had her circle of 
admirers and was queen in it. Who are these pale creatures 
who come to stare at my charms 7 Have they no dark pretty 
women in their own land ? And she might well have asked, what 
would she do — a beauty of New York city, let us say — when 
she sat combing her hair on the marble doorsteps of her father's 
palace in Madison Square, if a lot of savage, impolite Nubians, 
should come and stand in a row in front of her and stare .? 

The only shops here are the temporary booths of traders, 
birds of passage to or from the equatorial region. Many of 
them have pitched their gay tents under the trees, making the 
scene still more like a fair or an encampment for the night. In 
some are displayed European finery and trumpery, manufactured 
for Africa, calico in striking colors, glass beads and cotton 
cloth ; . others are coffee-shops, where men are playing at a sort 



292 CLASSIC BEAUTY.— A GREEK BRIDE. 

of draughts — the checker-board being holes made in the sand 
and the men pebbles. At the door of a pretty tent stood a 
young and handsome Syrian merchant, who cordially invited us 
in, and pressed upon us the hospitality of his house. He was on 
his way to Darfoor, and might remain there two or three years, 
trading with the natives. We learned this by the interpretation 
of his girl-wife, who spoke a little barbarous French. He had 
married her only recently, and this was their bridal tour, we 
inferred. Into what risks and perils was this pretty woman 
going .'' She was Greek, from one of the islands, and had the 
naivete and freshness of both youth and ignorance. Her fair 
complexion was touched by the sun and ruddy with health. 
Her blue eyes danced with the pleasure of living. She wore her 
hair natural, with neither oil nor ornament, but cut short and 
pushed behind the ears. For dress she had a simple calico 
gown of pale yellow, cut high in the waist, a la Grecque, the 
prettiest costume women ever assumed. After our long regimen 
of the hideous women of the Nile, plastered with dirt, soaked in 
oil, and hung with tawdry ornaments, it may be imagined how 
welcome was this vision of a woman, handsome, natural and 
clean, with neither the shyness of an animal nor the brazenness 
of a Ghawazee. 

Our hospitable entertainers hastened to set before us what 
they had; a bottle of Maraschino was opened, very good 
European cigars were produced, and a plate of pistachio nuts, 
to eat with the cordial. The artless Greek beauty cracked the 
nuts for us with her shining teeth, laughing all the while ; urging 
us to eat, .and opening her eyes in wonder that we would not 
eat more, and would not carry away more. It must be confessed 
that we had not much conversation, but we made it up in 
constant smiling, and ate our pistachios and sipped our cordial 
in great glee. What indeed could we have done more with 
words, or how have passed a happier hour .? We perfectly 
understood each other; we drank each other's healths; we were 
civilized beings, met by chance in a barbarous place ; we were 
glad to meet, and we parted in the highest opinion of each 
other, with gay salaams, and not in tears. What fate I wonder 



INTERVIEWING A CROCODILE. 293 

had these handsome and adventurous merchants among the 
savages of Darfoor and Kordofan ? 

The face of our black boy, Gohah, was shining with pleasure 
when we walked away, and he said Avith enthusiasm, pointing 
to the tent, " Sitt tyeb, que'i-ts." Accustomed as he was to the 
African beauties of Soudan, I do not wonder that Gohah 
thought this "lady" both "good" and "beautiful." 

We have seen Wady Haifa. The expedition to Darfoor is 
packing up to begin its desert march in the morning. Our 
dahabeeh has been transformed and shorn of a great part of its 
beauty. We are to see no more the great bird-wing sail. The 
Ibhg yard has been taken down and is slung above us the whole 
length of the deck. The twelve big sweeps are put in place ; 
ihe boards of the forward deck are taken up, so that the rowers 
will have place for their feet as they sit on the beams. They sit 
fronting the cabin, and rise up and take a step forward at each 
stroke, settling slowly back to their seats. On the mast is 
rigged the short stern-yard and sail, to be rarely spread. Here- 
after we are to float, and drift, and whirl, and try going with the 
current arid against the wind. 

At ten o'clock of a moonlight night, a night of summer heat, 
we swing off, the rowers splashing their clumsy oars and setting 
up a shout and chorus in minor, that sound very much like a 
wail, and would be quite appropriate if they were ferrymen of 
the Styx. We float a few miles, and then go aground and go to 
bed. 

The next day we have the same unchanging sky, the same 
groaning and creaking of the sakiyas, and in addition the irreg- 
ular splashing of the great sweeps as we slide down the river. 
Two crocodiles have the carelessness to show themselves on a 
sand-island, one a monstrous beast, whose size is magnified every 
time we think how his great back sunk into the water when our 
sandal was yet beyond rifle-shot. Of course he did not know 
that we carried only a shot-gun and intended only to amuse him, 
or he would not have been in such haste. 

The wind is adverse, we gain little either by oars or by the 
current, and at length take to the shore, where something novel 



294: JOKING WITH A WIDO W. 

always rewards us. This time we explore some Roman ruins, 
with round arches of unburned bricks, and find in them also the 
unmistakable sign of Roman occupation, the burnt bricks — those 
thin slabs, eleven inches long, five wide, and two thick, which 
were a favorite form with them, bricks burnt for eternity, and 
scattered all over the East wherever the Roman legions went. 

Beyond these is a village, not a deserted village, but probably 
the laziest in the world. Men, and women for the most part too, 
were lounging about and in the houses, squatting in the dust, in 
absolute indolence, except that the women, all of them, were 
suckling their babies, and occasionally one of them was spinning 
a little cotton-thread on a spindle whirled in the hand. The 
men are more cleanly than the women, in every respect in better 
condition, some of them bright, fine-looking fellows. One of 
them showed us through his house, which was one of the finest 
in the place, and he was not a little proud of it. It was a large 
mud-wall enclosure. Entering by a rude door we came into an 
open space, from which opened several doors, irregular breaks 
in the wall, closed by shackling doors of wood. Stepping over 
the sill and stooping, we entered the living-rooms. J'irst, is the 
kitchen ; the roof of this is the sky — you are always liable to find 
yourself outdoors in these houses — and the fire for cooking is 
built in one corner. Passing through another hole in the wall 
we come to a sleeping-room, where were some jars of dates and 
doora, and a mat spread in one corner to lie on. Nothing but 
an earth-floor, and dust and grime everywhere. A crowd of 
tittering girls were flitting about, peeping at us from doorways, 
and diving into them with shrill screams, like frightened rabbits, 
if we approached. 

Abd-el-Atti raises a great laugh by twisting a piastre into the 
front lock of hair of the ugliest hag there, calling her his wife, 
and drawing her arm under his to take her to the boat. It is an 
immense joke. The old lady is a widow and successfully con- 
ceals her reluctance. The tying the piece of silver in the hair 
is a sign of marriage. All the married women wear a piastre or 
some scale of silver on the forehead ; the widows leave off this 
ornament from the twist; the young girls show, by the hair plain, 



A MODEL VILLAGE. 295 

except always the clay dabs, that they are in the market. The 
simplicity of these people is noticeable. I saw a woman seated 
on the ground, in dust three inches thick, leaning against the 
mud-bank in front of the house, having in her lap a naked baby; 
on the bank sat another wofman, braiding the hair of the first, 
wetting it with muddy water, and working into it sand, clay, and 
tufts of dead hair. What a way to spend Sunday! 

This is, on the whole, a model village. The people appear to 
have nothing, and perhaps they want nothing. They do nothing, 
and I suppose they would thank no one for coming to increase 
their wants and set them to work. Nature is their friend. 

I wonder what the staple of conversation of these people is, 
since the weather offers nothing, being always the same, and 
always fine. 

A day and a night and a day we fight adverse winds, and make 
no headway. One day we lie at Farras, a place of no conse- 
quence, but having, almost as a matter of course, ruins of the time 
of the Romans and the name Rameses II. cut on a rock. In a 
Roman wall we find a drain-tile exactly like those we use now. 
In the evening, after moon-rise, we drop down to Aboo Simbel. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



GIANTS IN STONE. 



WHEN daylight came the Colossi of Aboo Simbel (or Ip- 
sambool) were looking into our windows ; greeting the 
sunrise as they have done every morning for three 
thousand five hundred years ; and keeping guard still over the 
approach to the temple, whose gods are no longer anywhere 
recognized, whose religion disappeared from the earth two 
thousand years ago : — vast images, making an eternity of time 
in their silent waiting. 

The river here runs through an unmitigated desert. On the 
east the sand is brown, on the west the sand is yellow; that is 
the only variety. There is no vegetation, there are no habita- 
tions, there is no path on the shore, there are no footsteps on the 
sand, no one comes to break the spell of silence. To find such 
a monument of ancient power and art as this temple in such a 
solitude enhances the visitor's wonder and surprise. The 
Pyramids, Thebes, and Aboo Simbel are the three wonders of 
Egypt. But the great temple of Aboo Simbel is unique. It 
satisfies the mind. It is complete in itself, it is the projection 
of one creative impulse of genius. Other temples are growths, 
they have additions, afterthoughts, we can see in them the 
workings of many minds and many periods. This is a complete 
thought, struck out, you would say, at a heat. 

In order to justify this opinion, I may be permitted a little 
detail concerning this temple, which impressed us all as much 
as anything in Egypt. There are two temples here, both close 
to the shorcj. both cut in the mountain of rock which here almost 

296 



A JiOW OF SACRED MONKEYS, £97 



overhangs the stream. We need not delay to speak of the 
smaller one, although it would be wonderful, if it were not for 
the presence of the larger. Between the two was a rocky gorge. 
This is now nearly filled up, to the depth of a hundred feet, by 
the yellow sand that has drifted and still drifts over from the 
level of the desert hills above. 

This sand, which drifts exactly like snow, lies in ridges like 
snow, and lies loose and sliding under the feet or packs hard 
like snow, once covered the fagade of the big temple altogether, 
and now hides a portion of it. The entrance to the temple was 
first cleared away in 1817 by Belzoni and his party, whose gang 
of laborers worked eight hours a day for two weeks with the 
thermometer at 112° to 116^ Fahenheit in the shade— an almost 
incredible endurance when you consider what the heat must 
have been in the sun beating upon this dazzling wall of sand in 
front of them. 

The rock in which the temple is excavated was cut back a 
considerable distance, but in this cutting the great masses were 
left which were to be fashioned into the four figures. The facade 
thus made, to which these statues are attached, is about one 
hundred feet high. The statues are seated on thrones with no 
intervening screens, and, when first seen, have the appearance 
of images in front of and detached from the rock of which they 
form a part. The statues are all tolerably perfect, except one, 
the head of which is broken and lies in masses at its feet ; and at 
the time of our visit the sand covered the two northernmost to 
the knees. The door of entrance, over which is a hawk-headed 
figure of Re, the titular divinity, is twenty feet high. Above the 
colossi, and as a frieze over the curve of the cornice, is a row of 
monkeys, (there were twenty-one originally, but some are split 
away), like a company of negro minstrels, sitting and holding up 
their hands in the most comical manner. Perhaps the Egyptians, 
like the mediaeval cathedral builders, had a liking for grotesque 
effects in architecture; but they may have intended nothing • 
comic here, for the monkey had sacred functions ; he was an 
emblem of Thoth, the scribe of the under-world, who recorded 
the judgments of Osiris. 



298 THE LARGEST COLOSSI IN THE WORLD. 

These colossi are the largest In the world * ; they are at least 
fifteen feet higher than the wonders of Thebes, but it is not their 
size principally that makes their attraction. As works of art 
they are worthy of study. Seated, with hands on knees, in that 
eternal, traditional rigidity of Egyptian sculpture, nevertheless 
the grandeur of the head and the noble beauty of the face take 
them out of the category of mechanical works. The figures 
represent Rameses II. and the features are of the type which 
has come down to us as the perfection of Egyptian beauty. 

I climbed up into the lap of one of the statues ; it is there only 
that you can get an adequate idea of the size of the body. 
What a roomy lap! Nearly ten feet between the wrists that 
rest upon the legs ! I sat comfortably in the navel of the statue, 
as in a niche, and mused on the passing of the nations. To 
these massive figures the years go by like the stream. With 
impassive, serious features, unchanged in expression in thousands 
of years, they sit listening always to the flowing of the unending 
Nile, that fills all the air and takes away from that awful silence 
which would else be painfully felt in this solitude. 

The interior of this temple is in keeping with its introduction. 
You enter a grand hall supported by eight massive . Osiride 
columns, about twenty-two feet high as we estimated them. 
They are figures of Rameses become Osiris — to be absorbed into 
Osiris is the end of all the transmigrations of the blessed soul. 
The expression of the faces of such of these statues as are unin- 
jured, is that of immortal youth — a beauty that has in it the 
promise of immortality. The sides of this hall are covered with 
fine sculptures, mainly devoted to the exploits of Rameses II. ; 
and here is found again, cut in the stone the long Poem of the 
poet Pentaour, celebrating the single-handed exploit of Rameses 
against the Khitas on the river Orontes. It relates that the king, 
whom his troops dared not follow, charged with his chariot alone 



* The following are some of the measurements of one of these giants : — 
height of figure sixty-six feet ; pedestal on which it sits, ten ; leg from knee to 
heel, twenty ; great toe, one and a half feet thick ; ear, three feet, five inches 
long; fore-finger, three feet ; from inner side of elbow-joint to end of middle 
finger, fifteen feet. 



A LITTLE PHARAONIC BOMBAST. 299 

into the ranks of the enemy and rode through them again and 
again, and slew them by hundreds. Rameses at that time was 
only twenty-three ; it was his first great campaign. Pursuing the 
enemy, he overtook them in advance of his troops, and, rejecting 
the councils of his officers, began the fight at once. " The foot- 
men and the horsemen then," says the poet (the translator is M. 
de Rouge), " recoiled before the enemy who were masters of 

Kadesh, on the left bank of the Orontes Then his majesty, 

in the pride of his strength, rising up like the god Mauth, put on 
his fighting dress. Completely armed, he looked like Baal in the 
hour of his might. Urging on his chariot, he pushed into the 
army of the vile Khitas; he was alone, no one was with him. 
He was surrounded by 2,500 chariots, and the swiftest of the 
warriors of the vile Khitas, and of the numerous nations who 
accompanied them, threw themselves in his way. . . . Each chariot 
bore three men, and the king had with him neither princes nor 
generals, nor his captains of archers nor of chariots." 

Then Rameses calls upon Amun; he reminds him of the 
obelisk he has raised to him, the bulls he has slain for him :— 
" Thee, I invoke, O my Father ! I am in the midst of a host 
of strangers, and no man is with me. My archers and 
horsemen have abandoned me ; when I cried to them, none of 
them has heard, when I called for help. But I prefer Amun to 
thousands of millions of archers, to millions of horsemen, to 
millions of young heroes all assembled together. The designs 
of men are nothing, Amun overrules them." 

Needless to say the prayer was heard, the king rode slashing 
through the ranks of opposing chariots, slaying, and putting 
to rout the host. Whatever basis of fact the poem may have 
had in an incident of battle or in the result of one engage- 
ment, it was like one of Napoleon's bulletins from Egypt. 
The Khitas were not subdued and, not many years after, they 
drove the Egyptians out of their land and from nearly all 
Palestine, forcing them, out of all their conquests, into the 
valley of the Nile itself. During the long reign of this 
Rameses, the power of Egypt steadily declined, while luxury 
increased and the nation was exhausted in building the 



300 THE MYSTERIOUS TEMPLE AT IPSAMBOOL. 

enormous monuments which the king projected. The close 
of his pretentious reign has been aptly compared to that of 
Louis XIV. — a time of decadence; in both cases the great 
fabric was ripe for disaster. 

But Rameses liked the poem of Pentaour. It is about as 
long as a book of the Iliad, but the stone-cutters of his reign 
must have known it by heart. He kept them carving it and 
illustrating it all his life, on every wall he built where there 
was room for the story. He never, it would seem, could get 
enough of it. He killed those vile Khitas a hundred times; 
he pursued them over all the stone walls in his kingdom. 
The story is told here at Ipsambool; it is carved in the 
Rameseum; the poem is graved on Luxor and Karnak. 

Out of this great hall open eight other chambers, all more 
or less sculptured, some of them covered with well-drawn 
figures on which the color is still vivid. Two of these rooms 
are long and very narrow, with a bench running round the 
walls, the front of which is cut out so as to imitate seats with 
short pillars. In one are square niches, a foot deep, cut in 
the wall. The sculptures in one are unfinished, the hiero- 
glyphics and figures drawn in black but not cut — some event 
having called off the artists and left their work incomplete 
We seem to be present at the execution of these designs, and 
so fresh are the colors of those finished, that it seems it must 
have been only yesterday that the workman laid down the 
brush. (A small chamber in the rock outside the temple, 
which was only opened in 1874, is wonderful in the vividness 
of its colors; we see there better than anywhere else the 
colors of vestments.) 

These chambers are not the least mysterious portion of this 
temple. They are in absolute darkness, and have no chance 
of ventilation. By what light was this elaborate carving 
executed? If people ever assembled in them, and sat on 
these benches, when lights were burning, how could they 
breathe "i If they were not used, why should they have been 
so decorated? They would serve very well for the awful 
mysteries of the Odd Fellows. Perhaps they were used by 
the Free Masons in Solomon's time. 



FETING THE ANCIENT DEITIES. 301 

Beyond the great hall is a transverse hall (having two 
small chambers ofif from it) with four square pillars, and from 
this a corridor leads to the adytum. Here, behind an altar of 
stone, sit four marred gods, facing the outer door, two 
hundred feet from it. They sit in a twilight that is only 
brightened by rays that find their way in at the distant door; 
but at morning they can see, from the depth of their moun- 
tain cavern, the rising sun. 

We climbed, up the yielding sand-drifts, to the top of the 
precipice in which the temple is excavated, and walked back 
to a higher ridge. The view from there is perhaps the best 
desert view on the Nile, more extensive and varied than that 
of Aboosir. It is a wide sweep of desolation. Up and down 
the river we see vast plains of sand and groups of black hills; 
to the west and north the Libyan desert extends with no 
limit to a horizon fringed with sharp peaks, like aiguilles of 
the Alps, that have an exact resemblance to a forest. 

At night, we give the ancient deities a sort of Fourth of 
July, and illuminate the temple with colored lights. A blue- 
light burns upon the altar in the adytum before the four gods,, 
who may seem in their penetration to receive again the 
worship to which they were accustomed three thousand years 
ago. A green flame in the great hall brings out mysteriously 
the features of the gigantic Osiride, and revives the midnight 
glow of the ancient ceremonies. In the glare of torches and 
colored lights on the outside, the colossi loom in their 
gigantic proportions and cast grotesque shadows. 

Imagine this temple as it appeared to a straager initiated 
into the mysteries of the religion of the Pharaohs — a cultus in 
w^hich the mathematical secrets of the Pyramid and the 
Sphinx, art and architecture, were w^rapped in the same 
concealment with the problem of the destiny of the soul; 
when the colors on these processions of gods and heroes, 
upon these wars and pilgrimages sculptured in large on the 
walls, were all brilliant ; when these chambers were gor- 
geously furnished, when the heavy doors that then hung in 
every passage, separating the different halls and apartments. 



302 OUR LAST VIEW OF THE GIANTS. 



only swung open to admit the neophyte to new and deeper 
mysteries, to halls blazing with light, where he stood in the 
presence of these appalling figures, and of hosts of priests and 
acolytes. 

The temple of Aboo Simbel was built early in the reign of 
Rameses II., when art, under the impulse of his vigorous 
predecessors was in its flower, and before the visible decadence 
which befel it later under a royal patronage and "protection," 
and in the demand for a wholesale production, which always 
reduces any art to mechanical conditions. It seemed to us 
about the finest single conception in Egypt. It must have 
been a genius of rare order and daring who evoked in this 
solid mountain a work of such grandeur and harmony of 
proportion, and then executed it without a mistake. The first 
blow on the exterior, that began to reveal the Colossi, was 
struck with the same certainty and precision as that which 
brought into being the gods who are seated before the altar 
in the depth of the mountain. A bolder idea was never more 
successfully wrought out. 

Our last view of this wonder was by moonlight and by 
sunrise. We arose and went forth over the sand-bank at five 
o'clock. Venus blazed as never before. The Southern Cross 
was paling in the moonlight. The moon, in its last half, 
hung over the south-west corner of the temple rock, and 
threw a heavy shadow across a portion of the sitting figures. 
In this dimness of the half-light their proportions were 
supernatural. Details were lost. 

These might be giants of pre-historic times, or the old 
fabled gods of antediluvian eras, outlined largely and majes- 
tically, groping their way out of the hills. 

Above them was the illimitable, purplish blue of the sky. 
The Moon, one of the goddesses of the temple, withdrew more 
and more before the coming of Re, the sun-god to whom the 
temple is dedicated, until she cast no shadow on the facade. 
The temple, even the interior, caught the first glow of the 
reddening east. The light came, as it always comes at dawn, 
in visible waves, and these passed over the features of the 



THE SILENT GUARDIANS OF THE NILE. 303 

Colossi, wave after wave, slowly brightening them into life. 

In the interior the first flush was better than the light of 
many torches, and the Osiride figures were revealed in their 
hiding-places. At the spring equinox the sun strikes squarely 
in, two hundred feet, upon the faces of the sitting figures in 
the adytum. That is their annual salute ! Now it only sent 
its light to them ; but it made rosy the Osiride faces on one 
side of the great hall. 

The morning was chilly, and we sat on a sand-drift, 
wrapped up against the cutting wind, watching the marvellous 
revelation. The dawn seemed to ripple down the gigantic 
faces of the figures outside, and to touch their stony calm 
with something like a smile of gladness; it almost gave them 
motion, and we would hardly have felt surprised to see them 
arise and stretch their weary limbs, cramped by ages of 
inaction, and sing and shout at the coming of the sun-god. 
But they moved not, the strengthening light only revealed 
their stony impassiveness ; and when the sun, rapidly clearing 
the eastern hills of the desert, gilded first the row of grinning 
monkeys, and then the light crept slowly down over faces and 
forms to the very feet, the old heathen helplessness stood 
confessed. 

And when the sun swung free in the sky, we silently drew 
away and left the temple and the guardians alone and unmoved. 
We called the reis and the crew ; the boat was turned to the 
current, the great sweeps dipped into the water, and we 
continued our voyage down the eternal river, which still sings 
and flows in this lonely desert place, where sit the most 
gigantic figures man ever made. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

FLITTING THROUGH NUBIA. 

'E HAVE been learning the language. The language 
consists merely of tyeb. With tyeb in its various accents 
and inflections, you can carry on an extended conver- 
sation. I have heard two Arabs talking for a half hour, in which 
one of them used no word for reply or response except tyeb 
"good." 

Tyeb is used for assent, agreement, approval, admiration, both 
interrogatively and affectionately. It does the duty of the 
Yankee "all right " and the vulgarism "that's so" combined; it 
has as many meanings as the Italian va bene, or the German So ! 
or the English girl's yes! yes.'' ye-e-s, ye-e-as ? yes (short), 
'n ye-e-es in doubt and really a negative — ex. : — " How lovely 
Blanche looks to-night ! " " 'n ye-e-es." You may hear two 
untutored Americans talking, and one of them, through a long 
interchange of views will utter nothing except, " that's so," 
" that's so ? " thafs so," " that's so.'' I think two Arabs meeting 
could come to a perfect understanding with, 

''Tyeb}'' 

" Tyebr 

" Tyeb ! " (both together). 

" Tyeb} " (showing something). 

" Tyeb " (emphatically, in admiration). 

" Tyeb " (in approval of the other's admiration). 

" Tyeb Keteer " (" good, much "). 

" Tyeb Keteer > " 

" Tyeb." 

" Tyeb." (together, in ratification of all that has been said). 

304 



MODEL S OF BRE VI TV. SOS 

I say fyed in my satisfaction with you ; you say (yed in pleasure 
at my satisfaction ; I say (yed in my pleasure at your pleasure. 
The servant says iyed when you give him an order ; you say tye^ 
upon his comprehending it. The Arabic is the richest of lan- 
guages. I believe there are three hundred names for earth, a 
hundred for lion, and so on. But the vocabulary of the common, 
people is exceedingly limited. Our sailors talk all day with the 
aid of a very few words. 

But we have got beyond tye3. We can say eiwa ('* yes ") — or 
nam, when we wish to be elegant — and /a {"no"). The uni- 
versal negative in Nubia, however, is simpler than this — it is a 
cluck of the tongue in the left check and a slight upward jerk of 
the head. This cluck and jerk makes "no," from which there 
is no appeal. If you ask a Nubian the price of anything — 
be-kd7n deel — and he should answer khdmsa (^'"^nq"), and you 
should offer theldta (" three"), and he should kch and jerk up 
his head, you might know the trade was hopeless; because the 
kch expresses indifference as well as a negative. The best thing 
you could do would be to say bookra ("to-morrow"), and go 
away — meaning in fact to put off the purchase forever, as the 
Nubian very well knows when he politely adds, tyeb. 

But there are two other words necessary to be mastered before 
the traveller can say he knows Arabic. To the constant call for 
"backsheesh" and the obstructing rabble of beggars and 
children, you must be able to say mafeesh ("nothing"), and 
im'shee ("getaway," "clear out," "scat.") It is my experience 
that this im'shee is the most necessary word in Egypt. 

We do nothing all day but drift, or try to drift, against the 
north wind, not making a mile an hour, constantly turning about^ 
floating from one side of the river to the other. It is impossible 
to row, for the steersman cannot keep the boat's bow to the 
current. 

There is something exceedingly tedious, even to a lazy and 
resigned man, in this perpetual drifting hither and thither. To 
float, however slowly, straight down the current, would be quite 
another thing. To go sideways, to go stern first, to waltz around 
so that you never can tell which bank of the river you are 
20 



306 CUTTING UP A CROCODILE, 

looking at, or which way you are going, or what the points of 
the compass are, is confusing and unpleasant. It is the one 
serious annoyance of a dahabeeh voyage. If it is calm, we go 
on delightfully with oars and current ; if there is a southerly 
breeze we travel rapidly, and in the most charming way in the 
world. But our high-cabined boats are helpless monsters in this 
wind, which continually blows ; we are worse than becalmed, we 
are badgered. 

However, we might be in a worse winter country, and one less 
entertaining. We have just drifted in sight of a dahabeeh, with 
the English flag, tied up to the bank. On the shore is a pictu- 
resque crowd ; an awning is stretched over high poles ; men are 
busy at something under it — on the rock near sits a group of 
white people under umbrellas. What can it be.? Are they 
repairing a broken yard ? Are they holding a court over some 
thief.'' Are they performing some mystic ceremony ? We take 
the sandal and go to investigate. 

An English gentleman has shot two crocodiles, and his people 
are skinning them, stuffing the skin, and scraping the flesh from 
the bones, preparing the skeletons for a museum. Horrible 
creatures they are, even in this butchered condition. The largest 
is twelve feet long ; that is called a big crocodile here ; but last 
winter the gentleman killed one that was seventeen feet long; 
that was a monster. 

In the stomach of one of these he found two pairs of bracelets, 
such as are worn by Nubian children, two " cunning " little 
leathern bracelets ornamented with shells — a most useless 
ornament for a crocodile. The animal is becoming more and 
more shy every year, and it is very difficult to get a shot at one. 
They come out in the night, looking for bracelets. One night 
we nearly lost Ahmed, one of our black boys ; he had gone down 
upon the rudder, when an enquiring crocodile came along and 
made a snap at him — when the boy climbed on deck he looked 
white even by starlight. 

The invulnerability of the crocodile hide is exaggerated. One 
of these had two bullet-holes in his back. His slayer says he 
has repeatedly put bullets through the hide on the back. 



EGYPTIAN ''LOAFERS.'' 307 

When we came away we declined steaks, but the owner gave us 
some eggs, so that we might raise our own crocodiles. 

Gradually we drift out of this almost utterly sterile country, 
and come to long strips of palm-groves, and to sakiyas innumer- 
able, shrieking on the shore every few hundred feet. We have 
time to visit a considerable village, and see the women at their 
other occupation (besides lamentation) braiding each other's 
hair ; sitting on the ground, sometimes two at a head, patiently 
twisting odds and ends of loose hair into the snaky braids, and 
muddling the whole with sand, water, and clay, preparatory to the 
oil. A few women are spinning with a hand-spindle and pro- 
ducing very good cotton-thread. All appear to have time on 
their hands. And what a busy place this must be in summer, 
when the heat is like that of an oven ! The men loaf about like 
the women, and probably do even less. Those at work are 
mostly slaves, boys and girls in the slighest clothing; and even 
these do a great deal of" standing round." Wooden hoes are 
used. 

The desert over which we walked beyond the town was 
very different from the Libyan with its drifts and drifts of 
yellow sand. We went over swelling undulations (like our 
rolling prairies), cut by considerable depressions, of sandstone 
with a light sand cover but all strewn with shale or shingle. 
This black shale is sometimes seen adhering like a layer of 
glazing to the coarse rock ; and, though a part of the rock, it 
has the queer appearance of having been a deposit solidified 
upon it and subsequently broken off. On the tops of these 
hills we found everywhere holes scooped out by the natives in 
search of nitre; the holes showed evidence, in dried mud, of 
the recent presence of water. 

We descended into a deep gorge, in which the rocks were 
broken squarely down the face, exhibiting strata of red, 
white, and variegated sandstone; the gorge was a Wady that 
ran far back into the country among the mountains; we 
followed it down to a belt of su7it acacias and palms on the 
river. This wady was full of rocks, like a mountain stream 
at home; a great torrent running long in it, had worn the 



308 '4 MODERN DA VID. 



rocks into fantastic shapes, cutting punch-bowls and the like, 
and water had recently dried in the hollows. But it had not 
rained on the river. 

This morning we are awakened by loud talking and wrang- 
ling on deck, that sounds like a Paris revolution. We have 
only stopped for milk ! The forenoon we spend among the 
fashionable ladies of Derr, the capital of Nubia, studying the 
modes, in order that we may carry home the latest. This is 
an aristocratic place. One of the eight-hundred-years-old 
sycamore trees, of which we made mention, is still vigorous 
and was bearing the sycamore fig. The other is in front of 
a grand mud-house with latticed windows, the residence of 
the Kashefs of Sultan Selim whose descendants still occupy 
it, and, though shorn of authority, are said to be proud of 
their Turkish origin. One of them, Hassan Kashef, an old 
man in the memory of our dragoman, so old that he had to 
lift up his eyelids with his finger when he wanted to see, died 
only a few years ago. This patriarch had seventy-two wives 
as his modest portion in this world; and as the Koran allows 
only four, there was some difficulty in settling the good man's 
estate. The matter was referred to the Khedive, but he wisely 
refused to interfere. When the executor came to divide the 
property among the surviving children, he found one hundred 
and five to share the inheritance. 

The old fellow had many other patriarchal ways. On his 
death-bed he left a legacy of both good and evil wishes, 
requests to reward this friend, and to "serve out" that 
enemy, quite in the ancient style, and in the Oriental style, 
recalling the last recorded words of King David, whose 
expiring breath was an expression of a wish for vengeance 
upon one of his enemies, whom he had sworn not to kill. It 
reads now as if it might have been spoken by a Bedawee 
sheykh to his family only yesterday : — " And, behold, thou hast 
with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, which 
cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to 
Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I 
sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death 



THE HEAD OF AN ENEMY. 309 

with the sword. Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for 
thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do 
unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave 
with blood. So David slept with his fathers, and was buried 
in the city of David." 

We call at the sand-covered temple at A'mada, and crawl 
into it; a very neat little affair, with fresh color and fine 
sculptures, and as old as the time of Osirtasen III. (the date of 
the obelisk of Heliopolis, of the Tombs of Beni Hassan, say 
about fifteen hundred years before Rameses II.) ; and then sail 
quickly down to Korosko, passing over in an hour or so a 
distance that required a day and a half on the ascent. 

At Korosko there are caravans in from Kartoom ; the camel- 
drivers wear monstrous silver rings, made in the interior, the 
crown an inch high and set with blood-stone. I bought from 
the neck of a pretty little boy a silver "charm," a flat plate 
with the name of Allah engraved on it. Neither the boy nor the 
charm had been washed since they came into being. 

The caravan had brought one interesting piece of freight, 
which had just been sent down the river. It was Xh& head oi 
the Sultan of Darfoor, preserved in spirits, and forwarded to 
the Khedive as a present. This was to certify that the Sultan 
was really killed, when Darfoor was captured by the army of the 
Viceroy ; though I do not know that there is any bounty on the 
heads of African Sultans. It is an odd gift to send to a ruler 
who wears the European dress and speaks French, and whose 
chief military officers are Americans. 

The desolate hills behind Korosko rise a thousand feet, and 
we climbed one of the peaks to have a glimpse of the desert 
route and the country towards Kartoom. I suppose a more 
savage landscape does not exist. The peak of black disintegra- 
ted rocks on which we stood was the first of an assemblage of 
such as far as we could see south ; the whole horizon was cut 
by these sharp peaks; and through these thickly clustering 
hills the caravan trail made its way in sand and powdered dust. 
Shut in from the breeze, it must be a hard road to travel, even 
with a winter sun multiplying its rays from all these hot rocks; 



310 OUR MENAGERIE. 



in the summer it would be frightful. But on these summits, or 
on any desert swell, the air is an absolute elixir of life; it has a 
quality of lightness but not the rarity that makes respiration 
difficult. 

At a village below Korosko we had an exhibition of the 
manner of fighting with the long Nubian war-spear and the big 
round shield made of hippopotamus-hide. The men jumped 
about and uttered frightening cries, and displayed more agility 
than fight, the object being evidently to terrify by a threatening 
aspect ; but the scene was as barbarous as any we see in African 
pictures. Here also was a pretty woman (pretty for her) with 
beautiful eyes, who wore a heavy nose-ring of gold, which she 
said she put on to make her face beautiful; nevertheless she 
would sell the ring for nine dollars and a half. The people 
along here will sell anything they have, ornaments, charms to 
protect them from the evil-eye, — they will part with anything for 
money. At this village we took on a crocodile ten feet long, 
which had been recently killed, and lashed it to the horizontal 
yard. It was Abd-el-Atti's desire to present it to a friend in 
Cairo, and perhaps he was not reluctant, when we should be 
below the cataract, to have it take the appearance, in the eyes 
of spectators, of having been killed by some one on this boat. 

We obtained above Korosko one of the most beautiful animals 
in the world — a young gazelle — to add to our growing menagerie ; 
which consists of a tame duck, who never gets away when his 
leg is tied ; a timid desert hare, who has lived for a long time in 
a tin box in the cabin, trembling like an aspen leaf night and 
day ; and a chameleon. 

The chameleon ought to have a chapter to himself. We have 
reason to think that he has the soul of some transmigrating 
Egyptiain. He is the most uncanny beast. We have made him 
a study, and find very little good in him. His changeableness 
of color is not his worst quality. He has the nature of a spy, 
and he is sullen and snappish besides. We discovered that his 
color is not a purely physical manifestation, but that it depends 
upon his state of mind, upon his temper. When everything is 
serene, he is green as a May morning, but anger changes him 



THA T UGL V CHAMELEON. 2>\X 



instantly for the worse. It is however true that he takes his 
color mainly from the substance upon which he dwells, not from 
what he eats; for he eats flies and allows them to make no 
impression on his exterior. When he was taken off an acacia- 
tree, this chameleon was of the bright-green color of the leaves. 
Brought into our cabin, his usual resting-place was on the 
reddish maroon window curtains, and his green changed mud- 
dily into the color of the woollen. When angry, he would 
become mottled with dark spots, and have a thick cloudy color. 
This was the range of his changes of comple^fion; it is not 
enough (is it?) to give him his exaggerated reputation. 

I confess that I almost hated him, and perhaps cannot do 
him justice. He is a crawling creature at best, and his mode 
of getting about is disagreeable ; his feet have the power of 
clinging to the slightest roughness, and he can climb any- 
where; his feet are like hands ; besides, his long tail is like 
another hand; it is prehensile like the monkey's. He feels 
his way along very carefully, taking a turn with his tail about 
some support, when he is passing a chasm, and not letting go 
until his feet are firmly fixed on something else. And, then, 
the way he uses his eye is odious. His eye-balls are stuck 
upon the end of protuberances on his head, which protuber- 
ances work like ball-and-socket joints — as if you had your eye 
on the end of your finger. When he wants to examine 
anything, he never turns his head ; he simply swivels his eye 
round and brings it to bear on the object. Pretending to live 
in cold isolation on the top of a window curtain, he is always 
making clammy excursions round the cabin, and is sometimes 
found in our bed-chambers. You wouldn't like to feel his 
cold tail dragging over you in the night. 

The first question every morning, when we come to break- 
fast, is, 

"Where is that chameleon.?" 

He might be under the table, you know, or on the cushions, 
and you might sit on him. Commonly he conceals his body 
behind the curtain, and just lifts his head above the roller. 
There he sits, spying us, gyrating his evil eye upon us, and 



312 THE REQUEST OF FORTY WOMEN. 

never stirring his head ; he takes the color of the curtain so 
nearly that we could not see him if it was not for that swivel 
eye. It is then that he appears malign, and has the aspect of 
a wise but ill-disposed Egyptian whose soul has had ill luck 
in getting into any respectable bodies for three or four 
thousand years. He lives upon nothing, — you would think 
he had been raised in a Yxtixc^ p elision. Few flies happen his 
way; and, perhaps he is torpid out of the sun so much of the 
time, he is not active to catch those that come. I carried him 
a big one the other day, and he repaid my kindness by 
snapping my finger. And I am his only friend. 

Alas, the desert hare, whom we have fed with corn, and 
greens, and tried to breed courage in for a long time, died 
this morning at an early hour; either he was chilled out of 
the world by the cold air on deck, or he died of palpitation of 
the heart; for he was always in a flutter of fear, his heart 
going like a trip-hammer, when anyone approached him. He 
only rarely elevated his long silky ears in a serene enjoyment 
of society. His tail was too short, but he was, nevertheless, 
an animal to become attached to. 

Speaking of Hassan Kashef s violation of the Moslem law, 
in taking more than four wives, is it generally known that 
the women in Mohammed's time endeavored also to have the 
privileges of men ? Forty women who had cooked for the 
soldiers who were fighting the infidels and had done great 
service in the campaign, were asked by the Prophet to name 
their reward. The chief lady, who was put forward to prefer 
the request of the others, asked that as men were permitted 
four wives women might be allowed to have four husbands. 
The Prophet gave them a plain reason for refusing their 
petition, and it has never been renewed. The legend shows 
that long ago women protested against their disabilities. 

The strong north wind, with coolish weather, continues. 
On Sunday we are nowhere in particular, and climb a high 
sandstone peak, and sit in the shelter of a rock, where 
wandering men have often come to rest. It is a wild, desert 
place, and there is that in the atmosphere of the day which 
leads to talk of the end of the world. 



THE KHALIF AND THE FALSE PROPHETS. 2>\Z 

Like many other Moslems, Abd-el-Atti thinks that these 
are the last days, bad enough days, and that the end draws 
near. We have misunderstood what Mr. Lane says about 
Christ coming to "judge" the world. The Moslems believe 
that Christ, who never died, but was taken up into heaven 
away from the Jews, — a person in his likeness being crucified 
in his stead, — will come to rule, to establish the Moslem 
religion and a reign of justice (the Millenium) ; and that after 
this period Christ will die, and be buried in Medineh, not far 
from Mohammed. Then the world will end, and Azrael, the 
angel of death, will be left alone on the earth for forty days. 
He will go to and fro, and find no one; all will be in their 
graves. Then Christ and Mohammed and all the dead will 
rise. But the Lord God will be the final judge of all. 

"Yes, there have been many false prophets. A man came 
before Haroun e' Rasheed pretending to be a prophet. 

"'What proof have you that you are one.? What miracle 
can you do .-* '" 

" 'Anything you like.' " 

" * Christ, on whom be peace, raised men from the dead.' " 

"'So will I.' This took place before the king and the 
chief-justice. 'Let the head of the chief-justice be cut off,' 
said the pretended prophet, 'and I will restore him to life.' " 

"'Oh,' cried the chief-justice, 'I believe that the man is a 
real prophet. Anyone who does not believe can have his 
head cut off, and try it.' " 

"A woman also claimed to be a prophetess. 'But,' said the 
Khalif Haroun e' Rasheed, * Mohammed declared that he was 
the last man who should be a prophet.' " 

"'He didn't say that a 'woma7i shouldn't be,' the woman she 
answer." 

The people vary in manners and habits here from village 
to village, much more than we supposed they would. Walk- 
ing this morning for a couple of miles through the two 
villages of Maharraka — rude huts scattered under palm-trees 
— we find the inhabitants, partly Arab, partly Barabra, and 
many negro slaves, more barbaric than any we have seen; 



314 THE CAPTIVE'S CRY. 

boys and girls, till the marriageable age, in a state of nature, 
women neither so shy nor so careful about covering them- 
selves with clothing as in other places, and the slaves 
wretchedly provided for. The heads of the young children 
are shaved in streaks, with long tufts of hair left ; the women 
are loaded with tawdry necklaces, and many of them, poor as 
they are, sport heavy hoops of gold in the nose, and wear 
massive silver bracelets. 

The slaves, blacks and mulattoes, were in appearance like 
those seen formerly in our southern cotton-fields. I recall a 
picture, in abolition times, representing a colored man stand- 
ing alone, and holding up his arms, in a manner beseeching 
the white man, passing by, to free him. To-day I saw the 
picture realized. A very black man, standing nearly naked 
in the midst of a bean-field, raised up both his arms, and cried 
aloud to us as we went by. The attitude had all the old 
pathos in it. As the poor fellow threw up his arms in a wild 
despair, he cried "Backsheesh, backsheesh, O! howadji! " 

For the first time we found the crops in danger. The 
country was overrun with reddish-brown locusts, which set- 
tled in clouds upon every green thing ; and the people in 
vain attempted to frighten them from their scant strip of 
grain. They are not, however, useless. The attractive women 
caught some, and, pulling off the wings and legs, offered them 
to us to eat. They said locusts were good ; and I suppose they 
are such as John the Baptist ate. We are not Baptists. 

As we go down the river we take in two or three temples a 
day, besides these ruins of humanity in the village, — Dakkeh, 
Gerf Hossayn, Dendoor. It is easy to get enough of these 
second-class temples. That at Gerf Hossayn is hewn in the 
rock, and is in general arrangement like Ipsambool — it was 
also made by Rameses II. — but is in all respects inferior, and 
lacks the Colossi. I saw sitting in the adytum four figures 
whom I took to be Athos, Parthos, Aramis, and D'Artignan — 
though this edifice was built long before the day of the 
"Three Guardsmen." 

The people in the village below have such a bad reputation 



THE SCHOOLMASTER AT-HOME. 315 

that the dragoman, in great fright sent sailors after us, when 
he found we were strolling through the country alone. We 
have seen no natives so well off in cattle, sheep, and cooking- 
utensils, or in nose-rings, beads, and knives ; they are, however, 
a wild, noisy tribe, and the whole village followed us for a 
mile, hooting for backsheesh. The girls wear a nose-ring and 
a girdle; the boys have no rings or girdles. The men are 
fierce and jealous of their wives, perhaps with reason, stabbing 
and throwing them into the river on suspicion, if they are 
caught talking with another man. So they say. At this 
village we saw pits dug in the sand (like those described in the 
Old Testament), in which cattle, sheep and goats were folded ; 
it being cheaper to dig a pit than to build a stone fence. 

At Kalabshee are two temples, ruins on a sufficiently large 
scale to be imposing; sculptures varied in character and 
beautifully colored; propylons with narrow staircases, and 
concealed rooms, and deep windows bespeaking their use as 
fortifications and dungeons as well as temples ; and columns 
of interest to the architect; especially two, fluted (time of 
Rameses II.) with square projecting abacus like the Doric, 
but with broad bases. The inhabitants are the most pestilent 
on the river, crowding their curiosities upon us, and clamor- 
ing for money. They have for sale gazelle-horns, and the 
henna (which grows here), in the form of a green powder. 

However, Kalabshee has educational facilities. I saw there 
a boys' school in full operation. In the open air, but in the 
sheltering angle of a house near the ruins, sat on the ground 
the schoolmaster. Behind him leaned his gun against the wall^ 
before him lay an open Koran ; and in his hand he held a thin 
palm rod with which he enforced education. He was dictating 
sentences from the book to a scrap of a scholar, a boy who sat on 
the ground, with an inkhorn beside him, and wrote the sentences 
on a board slate, repeating the words in a loud voice as he wrote. 
Nearby was another urchin, seated before a slate leaning against 
the angle of of the wall, committing the writing on it to memory, 
in a loud voice also. When he looked off the stick reminded 
him to attend to his slate. I do not know whether he calls this 
a private or a public school. 



316' ' A STA TE OF CONFUSION. 

Quitting these inhospitable savages as speedily as we can, 
upon the springing up of a south wind, we are going down 
stream at a spanking rate, leaving a rival dahabeeh, belonging 
to an English lord, behind, when the adversary puts it into 
the head of our pilot to steer across the river, and our 
prosperous career is suddenly arrested on a sandbar. We are 
fast, and the English boat, keeping in the channel, shows us 
her rudder and disappears round the bend. 

Extraordinary confusion follows ; the crew are in the water, they 
are on deck, the anchor is got out, there are as many opinions, 
as people, and no one obeys. The long pilot is a spectator, 
after he has been wading about in the stream and comes on 
deck. His gown is off and his turban also; his head is shaved; 
his drawers are in tatters like lace-work. He strides up and 
down beating his breast, his bare poll shining in the sun like a 
billiard ball. We are on the sand nearly four hours, and the 
accident, causing us to lose this wind, loses us, it so happens, 
three days. By dark we tie up near the most excruciating 
Sakiya in the world. It is suggested to go on shore and buy 
the property and close it out. But the boy who is driving will 
neither sell nor stop his cattle, 

At Gertassee we have more ruins and we pass a beautiful, 
single column, conspicuous for a long distance over the desert, 
as fine as the once " nameless column " in the Roman forum, 
These temples, or places of worship, are on the whole depress- 
ing. There was no lack of religious privileges if frequency of 
religious edifices gave them. But the people evidently had no 
part in the ceremonies, and went never into these dark chambers, 
which are now inhabited by bats. The old religion does not 
commend itself to me. Of what use would be one of these 
temples on Asylum Hill, in Hartford, and how would the Rev. 
Mr. Twichell busy himself in its dark recesses, I wonder, even 
with the help of the deacons and the committee } The Gothic 
is quite enough for us. 

This morning — we have now entered upon the month of 
February — for the first time in Nubia, we have early a slight 
liaze, a thin veil of it ; and passing between shores rocky and 



TOO MUCH 'CONVERSION.' 317 

high and among granite breakers, we are reminded of the Hudson 
river on a June morning. A strong north wind, however, comes 
soon to puff away this illusion, and it blows so hard that we are 
actually driven up-stream. 

The people and villages under the crumbling granite ledges 
that this delay enables us to see, are the least promising we have 
encountered ; women and children are more nearly barbarians 
in dress and manners, for the women, a single strip of brown 
cotton, worn a la Bedawee, leaving free the legs, the right arm. 
and breast, is a common dress. And yet, some of these women 
are not without beauty. One pretty girl sitting on a rock, the 
sun glistening on the castor-oil of her hair, asked for backsheesh 
in a sweet voice, her eyes sparkling with merriment, A flower 
blooming in vain in this desert ! 

Is it a question of " converting " these people .'' Certainly, 
nothing but the religion of the New Testament, put in practice 
here, bringing in its train, industry, self-respect, and a desire to 
know, can awaken the higher nature, and lift these creatures into 
a respectable womanhood. But the task is more difficult than it 
would be with remote tribes in Central Africa. These people 
have been converted over and over again. They have had all 
sort of religions during the last few thousand years, and they 
remain essentially the same. They once had the old Egyptian 
faith, whatever it was ; and subsequently they varied that with 
the Greek and Roman shades of heathenism. They then accepted 
the early Christianity, as the Abyssinians did, and had, for hun- 
dreds of years, opportunity of Christian worship, when there 
were Christian churches all along the Nile from Alexander to 
Meroe, and holy hermits in every eligible cave and tomb. And 
then came Mohammed's friends, giving them the choice of 
belief or martyrdom, and they embraced the religion of Mecca 
as cordially as any other. 

They have remained essentially unchanged through all their 
changes. This hopelessness of their condition is in the fact that 
in all the shiftings of religions and of dynasties, the women have 
continued to soak their hair in castor-oil. The fashion is as old 
as the Nile world. Many people look upon castor-oil as an ex- 



318 STORY OF THE KAABEH. 

cellent remedy. I should like to know what it has done for Africa. 
At Dabod is an interesting ruin, and a man sits there in front 
of his house, weaving, confident that no rain will come to spoil 
his yarn. He sits and works the treadle of his loom in a hole 
in the ground, the thread being stretched out twenty or thirty 
feet on the wall before him. It is the only industry of the 
village, and a group of natives are looking on. The poor weaver 
asks backsheesh, and when I tell him I have nothing smaller 
than an English sovereign, he says he can change it ! 

Here we find also a sort of Holly-Tree Inn, a house for chari- 
table entertainments, such as is often seen in Moslem villages. 
It is a square mud-structure, entered by two doors, and contains 
two long rooms with communicating openings. The dirt-floors 
are cleanly swept and fresh mats are laid down at intervals. 
Any stranger or weary traveler, passing by, is welcome to come 
in and rest or pass the night, to have a cup of coffee and some 
bread. There are two cleanly dressed attendants, and one of 
them is making coffee, within, over a handful of fire, in a tiny 
coffee-pot. In front, in the sun, on neat mats, sit half a dozen 
turbaned men, perhaps tired wanderers and pilgrims in this world, 
who have turned aside to rest for an hour, for a day, or for a week. 
They appear to have been there forever. The establishment is 
maintained by a rich man of the place; but signs of an abode of 
wealth we failed to discover in any of the mud-enclosures. 

When we are under way again, we express surprise at finding 
here such an excellent charity, 

"You no think the Lord he take care for his own "i " says Abd- 
el-Atti. "When the kin' [king] of Abyssinia go to 'stroy the 
Kaabeh in Mecca " — 

" Did you ever see the Kaabeh .? " 
"Many times. Plenty times I been in Mecca." 
" In what part of the Kaabeh is the Black Stone .? " 
" So. The Kaabeh is a building like a cube, about, I think 
him, thirty feet high, built in the middle of the mosque at Mecca. 
It was built by Abraham, of white marble. In the outside the 
east wall, near the corner, 'bout so (four feet) high you find him, 
the Black Stone, put there by Abraham, call him haggeh el ashady 



WONDERFUL BIRDS A T MECCA. 319 

the lucky, the fortunate stone. It is opposite the sunrise. 
Where Abraham get him? God knows. If any one sick, he 
touch this stone, be made so well as he was. So I y^z^;^derstand. 
The Kaabeh is in the centre of the earth, and has fronts to the 
four quarters of the globe, Asia, Hindia, Egypt, all places, toward 
which the Moslem kneel in prayer. Near the Kaabeh is the well, 
the sacred well Zem-Zem, has clear water, beautiful, so lifely. 
One time a year, in the month before Ramadan, Zem-Zem 
spouts up high in the air, and people come to drink of it. When 
Hagar left Ishmael, to look for water, being very thirsty, the 
little fellow scratched with his fingers in the sand, and a spring 
of water rushed up; this is the well Zem-Zem. I told you the 
same water is in the spring in Syria, El Gebel ; I find him just 
the same; come under the earth from Zem-Zem." 

" When the' kin* of Abyssinia, who not believe, what you call 
infidel, like that Englishman, yes, Mr. Buckle, I see him in Sinai 
and Petra — very wise man, know a great deal, very nice gentle- 
man, I like him very much, but I think he not believe — when the 
kin* of Abyssinia came with all his great army and his elephants 
to fight against Mecca, and to 'stroy the Kaabeh as well the 
same time to carry off all the cattle of the people, then the people 
they say, 'the cattle are ours, but the Kaabeh is the Lord's, and 
he will have care over it; the Kaabeh is not ours.' There was 
one of the elephants of the kin' of Abyssinia, the name of Mah- 
moud, and he was very wise, more wise than anybody else. 
When he came in sight of Mecca, he turned back and went the 
other way, and not all the spears and darts of the soldiers could 
stop him. The others went on. Then the Lord sent out of the 
hell very small birds, with very little stones, taken out of hell, 
in their claws, no larger than mustard seeds ; and the birds drop- 
ped these on the heads of the soldiers that rode on the elephants 
— generally three or four on an elephant. The little seeds went 
right down through the men and through the elephants, and 
killed them, and by this the army was 'stroyed." 

" When the kin', after that, come into the mosque, some power 
outside himself made him to bow down in respect to the Kaabeh. 
He went away and did not touch it. And it stands there the 
same now." 




CHAPTER XXVI. 



MYSTERIOUS PHILiE. 



WE are on deck early to see the approach to Philse,, 
which is through a gateway of high rocks. The scenery 
is like parts of the Rhine; and as we come in sight of 
the old mosque perched on the hillside, and the round tomb on 
the pinnacle above, it is very like the Rhine, with castle ruins. 
The ragged and rock island of Biggeh rises before us and seems 
to stop the way, but, at a turn in the river, the little temple, with 
its conspicuous columns, then the pylon of the great temple, 
and at length the mass of ruins, that cover the little island of 
Philse, open on the view. 

In the narrows we meet the fleet of government boats convey- 
ing the engineer expedition going up to begin the railway from 
Wady Haifa to Berber. Abd-el-Atti does not like the prospect 
of Egypt running deeper and deeper in debt, with no good to 
come of it, he says; he believes that the Khedive is acting under 
the advice of England, which is entirely selfish and only desires 
a short way to India, in case the French should shut the Suez 
Canal against them (his view is a very good example of a Moslem's 
comprehension of affairs). Also thinking, with all Moslems,, 
that it is best to leave the world and its people as the Lord has 
created and placed them, he replied to an enquiry about his 
opinion of the railroad, with this story of Jonah : — 

" When the prophet Jonah came out of the whale and sat 
down on the bank to dry under a tree (I have seen the tree) in 
Syria, there was a blind man sitting near by, who begged the 
prophet to give him sight. Then Jonah asked the Lord for help, 

320 



PHILM. 321 

and the blind man was let to sec. The man was eating dates at 
the same time, and the first thing he did when he got his eyes 
open was to snap the hard seeds at Jonah, who you know was 
very tender from being so long in the whale. Jonah was stung 
on his skin, and bruised by the stones, and he cry out, 

" O ! Lord, how is this .? " 

And the Lord said, " Jonah, you not satisfied to leave things 
as I placed 'em; and now you must suffer for it." 

One muses and dreams at Philse. and does not readily arouse 
himself to the necessity of exploring and comprehending the 
marvels and the beauties that insensibly lead him into sentimen- 
tal reveries. If ever the spirit of beauty haunted a spot, it is this. 
Whatever was harsh in the granite ledges, or too sharp in the 
granite walls, whatever is repellant in the memory concerning 
the uses of these temples of a monstrous theogony, all is softened 
now by time, all asperities are worn away ; nature and art grow 
lovely together in a gentle decay, sunk in a repose too beautiful 
to be sad. Nowhere else in Egypt has the grim mystery of the 
Egyptians cultiis softened into so harmless a memory. 

The oval island contains perhaps a hundred acres. It is a 
rock, with only a patch or two of green, and a few scattered 
palms, just enough to give it a lonely, poetic, and not a fruitful 
aspect, and, as has been said, is walled all round from the water's 
edge. Covered with ruins, the principal are those of the temple 
of Isis. Beginning at the southern end of the island, where a 
flight of steps led up to it, it stretches along, with a curved 
and broadening colonnade, giant pylons, great courts and covered 
temples. It is impossible to imagine a structure or series of 
structures, more irregular in the lines or capricious in the forms. 
The architects gave free play to their fancy, and we find here the 
fertility and variety, if not the grotesqueness of imagination of 
the mediaeval cathedral builders. The capitals of the columns 
of the colonnade are sculptured in rich variety ; the walls of the 
west cloister are covered with fine carvings, the color on them 
still fresh and delicate; and the ornamental designs are as 
beautiful and artistic as the finest Greek work, which some of it 
suggests: as rich as the most lovely Moorish patterns, many of 
21 



322 THE MYTH OF OSIRIS. 

which seem to have been copied from these living creations — 
diamond-work, birds, exquisite medallions of flowers, and sphinxes. 

Without seeing this mass of buildings, you can have no notion 
of the labor expended in decorating them. All the surfaces of 
the gigantic pylons, of the walls and courts, exterior and interior, 
are covered with finely and carefully cut figures and hierogly- 
phics, and a great deal of the work is minute and delicate 
chiselling. You are lost in wonder if you attempt to estimate the 
time and the number of workmen necessary to accomplish all 
this. It seems incredible that men could ever have had patience 
or leisure for it. A great portion of the figures, within and 
without, have been, with much painstaking, defaced ; probably 
it was done by the early Christians, and this is the only impress 
they have left of their domination in this region. 

The most interesting sculptures, however, at Philse are 
those in a small chamber, or mortuary chapel, on the roof of 
the main temple, touching the most sacred mystery of the 
Egyptian religion, the death and resurrection of Osiris. This 
myth, which took many fantastic forms, was no doubt that 
forbidden topic upon which Herodotus was not at liberty to 
speak. It was the growth of a period in the Egyptian theo- 
logy when the original revelation of one God grew weak and 
began to disappear under a monstrous symbolism. It is 
possible that the priests, who held their religious philosophy 
a profound secret from the vulgar (whose religion was simply 
a gross worship of symbols), never relinquished the belief 
expressed in their sacred texts, which say of God " that He 
is the sole generator in heaven and earth, and that He has not 
been begotten. . . That He is the only living and true 
God, who was begotten by Himself. . . He who has 
existed from the beginning. . . . who has made all things 
and was not Himself made." It is possible that they may 
have held to this and still kept in the purity of its first 
conception the myth of the manifestation of Osiris, however 
fantastic the myth subsequently became in mythology and in 
the popular worship. 

Osiris, the personification of the sun, the life-giving, came 



HIS APOTHEOSIS. 323 



upon the earth to benefit men, and one of his titles was the 
"manifester of good and truth." He was slain in a conflict 
with Set the spirit of evil and darkness ; he was buried ; he 
was raised from the dead by the prayers of his wife, Isis ; he 
became the judge of the dead ; he was not only the life-giving 
but the saving deity; "himself the first raised from the dead, 
he assisted to raise those who were justified, after having 
aided them to overcome all their trials." 

But whatever the priests and the initiated believed, this 
myth is here symbolized in the baldest forms. We have the 
mummy of Osiris passing through its interment and the 
successive stages of the under-world ; then his body is dis- 
membered and scattered, and finally the limbs and organs are 
reassembled and joined together, and the resurrection takes 
place before our eyes. It reminds one of a pantomime of the 
Ravels, who used to chop up the body of a comrade and then 
put him together again as good as new, with the msouciance 
of beings who lived in a world where such transactions were 
common. This whole temple indeed, would be a royal place 
for the tricks of a conjurer or the delusions of a troop of stage 
wizards. It is full of dark chambers and secret passages, 
some of them in the walls and some subterranean, the 
entrances to which are only disclosed by removing a close- 
fitting stone. 

The great pylons, ascended by internal stairways, have 
habitable chambers in each story, lighted by deep slits of 
windows, and are like palace fortresses. The view from the 
summit of one of them is fascinating, but almost grim ; that 
is, your surroundings are huge masses of granite mountains 
and islands, only relieved by some patches of green and a few 
palms on the east shore. But time has so worn and fashioned 
the stones of the overtopping crags, and the color of the red 
granite is so warm, and the co7itours are so softened that under 
the brilliant sky the view is mellowed and highly poetical, and 
ought not to be called grim. 

This little island, gay with its gorgeously colored walls, 
graceful colonnades, garden-roofs, and spreading terraces, set in 



324 THE HEIGHTS OF BIGGEH. 

its rim of swift water, protected by these granite fortresses, bent 
over by this sky, must have been a dear and sacred place to the 
worshippers of Isis and Osiris, and we scarcely wonder that the 
celebration of their rites was continued so long in our era. We 
do not need, in order to feel the romance of the place, to know 
that it was a favorite spot with Cleopatra, and that she moored 
her silken-sailed dahabeeh on the sandbank where ours now 
lies. Perhaps she was not a person of romantic nature. There 
is a portrait of her here (the authenticity of which rests upon I 
know not what authority) stiffly cut in the stone, in which she. 
appears to be a resolute woman with full sensual lips and a 
determined chin. Her hair is put up in decent simplicity. But 
I half think that she herself was like her other Egyptian sisters 
and made her silken locks to shine with the juice of the castor-oil 
plant. But what were these mysteries in which she took part, 
and what was this worship, conducted in these dark and secret 
chambers.? It was veiled from all vulgar eyes; probably the 
people were scarcely allowed to set foot upon the sacred island. 

Sunday morning was fresh and cool, with fleecy clouds, light 
and summer-like. Instead of Sabbath bells, when I rose late, I 
heard the wild chant of a crew rowing a dahabeeh down the 
echoing channel. And I wondered how church bells, rung on 
the top of these pylons, would sound reverberating among these 
granite rocks and boulders. We climbed, during the afternoon, 
to the summit of the island of Biggeh, which overshadows 
Philse, and is a most fantastic pile of crags. You can best 
understand this region by supposing that a gigantic internal 
explosion lifted the granite strata into the air, and that the 
fragments fell hap-hazard. This Biggeh might have been piled 
up by the giants who attempted to scale heaven, when Zeus 
blasted them and their work with his launched lightning. 

From this summit, we have in view the broken, rock-strewn 
field called the Cataract, and all the extraordinary islands of 
rock above, that almost dam the river; there, over Philae, on 
the north shore, is the barrack-like Austrian Mission, and near 
it the railway that runs through the desert waste, round the 
hills of the Cataract, to Assouan. These vast piled-up fragments 



AA^ ORIENTAL LEGEND. 325 

and splintered ledges, here and all about us, although of red 
granite and syenite, are all disintegrating and crumbling into 
fine atoms. It is this decay that softens the hardness of the 
outlines, and harmonizes with the ruins below. Wild as the 
convulsion was that caused this fantastic wreck, the scene is not 
without a certain peace now, as we sit here this Sunday 
afternoon, on a high crag, looking down upon the pagan temples, 
which resist the tooth of time almost as well as the masses of 
granite rock that are in position and in form their sentinels. 

Opposite, on the hill, is the mosque, and the plastered dome 
of the sheykh's tomb, with its prayer-niche, a quiet and com- 
manding place of repose. The mosque looks down upon 
the ever-flowing Nile, upon the granite desolation, upon the 
decaying temple of Isis, — converted once into a temple of the 
true God, and now merely the marvel of the traveler. The 
mosque itself, representative of the latest religion, is falling to 
ruin. What will come next .? What will come to break up this 
civilized barbarism } 

" Abd-el-Atti, why do you suppose the Lord permitted the 
old heathen to have such a lovely place as this Philee for the 
practice of their superstitions .'' " 

" Do' know, be sure. Once there was a stranger, I reckon 
him travel without any dragoman, come to the tent of the 
prophet Abraham, and ask for food and lodging ; he was a kind 
of infidel, not believe in God, not to believe in anything but a bit 
of stone. And Abraham was very angry, and sent him away 
without any dinner. Then the Lord, when he saw it, scolded 
Abraham. 

"'But,' says Abraham, 'the man is an infidel, and does not 
believe in Thee.' 

" * Well,' the Lord he answer to Abraham, * he has lived in 
my world all his life, and I have suffered him, and taken care of 
him, and prospered him, and borne his infidelity ; and you 
could not give him a dinner, or shelter for one night in your 
house ! 

"Then Abraham ran after the infidel, and called him back, 
and told him all that the Lord he say. And the infidel when he 
heard it, answer, 



326 ''MR. fiddle:' 



" ' If the Lord says that, I believe in Him ; and I believe that 
you are a prophet.' " 

"And do you think, Abd-el-Atti, that men have been more 
tolerant, the Friends of Mohammed, for instance, since then?" 

" Men pretty nearly always the same ; I see 'em all 'bout 
alike. I read in our books a little, what you call 'emi* — yes, 
anecdote, how a Moslem 'ulama, and a Christian priest, and a 
Jewish rabbi, were in a place together, and had some conversa- 
tion, and they agreed to tell what each would like best to 
happen. 

"The priest he began: — 'I should like,' says he, 'as many 
Moslems to die as there are animals sacrificed by them on the 
day of sacrifice.' 

"'And I,' says the 'ulama, 'would like to see put out of the 
way so many Christians as they eat eggs on Easter.' 

" Now it is your turn, says they both to the rabbi : — ' Well, I 
should like you both to have your wishes.' I think the Jew 
have the best of it. Not so.'' " 

The night is soft and still, and envelopes Philae in a summer 
warmth. The stars crowd the blue-black sky with scintillant 
points, obtrusive and blazing in startling nearness ; they are all 
repeated in the darker blue of the smooth river, where lie also, 
perfectly outlined, the heavy shadows of the granite masses. 
Upon the silence suddenly breaks the notes of a cornet, from a 
dahabeeh moored above us, in pulsations, however, rather to 
emphasize than to break the hush of the night. 

"Eh! that's Mr.. Fiddle," cries Abd-el-Atti, whose musical 
nomenclature is not very extensive, "that's a him." 

Once on a moonless night in Upper Nubia, as we lay tied to 
the bank, under the shadow of the palms, there had swept past 
us, flashing into sight an instant and then gone in the darkness, 
an upward-bound dahabeeh, from the deck of which a cornet-a- 
piston flung out, in salute, the lively notes of a popular American 
air. The player (whom the dragoman could never call by any 
name but " Mr. Fiddle "), as we came to know later, was an 
Irish gentleman, Anglicized and Americanized, and indeed 
cosmopolitan, who has a fancy for going about the world and 



DREAMLAND. 327 

awaking here and there remote and commonly undisturbed 
echoes with his favorite brass horn, I daresay that moonlight 
voyagers on the Hudson have heard its notes dropping down 
from the Highlands ; it has stirred the air of every land on the 
globe except India; our own Sierras have responded to its 
invitations, and Mount Sinai itself has echoed its strains. There 
is a prejudice against the cornet, that it is not exactly a family 
instrument; and not more suited to assist in morning and 
evening devotions than the violin, which a young clergyman, 
whom I knew, was endeavoring to learn, in order to play it, 
gently, at family prayers. 

This traveled cornet, however, begins to play, with deliberate 
pauses between the bars, the notes of that glorious hymn, " How 
firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord," following it with the 
Prayer from Der Freischutz, and that, again, with some familiar 
Scotch airs (a transition perfectly natural in home-circles on 
Sunday evening), every note of which, leisurely floating out into 
the night, is sent back in distant echoes. Nothing can be 
lovelier than the scene, — the tropical night, the sentimental 
island, the shadows of columns and crags, the mysterious 
presence of a brooding past, — and nothing can be sweeter than 
these dulcet, lingering, re-echoing strains, which are the music 
of our faith, of civilization, of home. From these old temples 
did never come, in the days of the flute and the darabooka, such 
melodies. And do the spirits of Isis and Osiris, and of Berenice, 
Cleopatra, and Antoninus, who worshipped them here, listen, 
and know perhaps that a purer and better spirit has come into 
the world } 

In the midst of this echoing melody, a little boat, its sail 
noiselessly furled, its gunwales crowded with gowned and white- 
turbaned Nubians, glides out of the shadow and comes along- 
side, as silently as a ferry-boat of the under-world bearing the 
robed figures of the departed, and the venerable Reis of the 
Cataract steps on board, with es-salam 'aleykujfi ; and the nego- 
tiation for shooting the rapids in the morning begins. 

The reis is a Nubian of grave aspect, of a complexion many 
shades darker than would have been needed to disqualify its 



328 WAITING FOR THE PRINCE. 

possessor to enjoy civil rights in our country a few years ago, 
and with watchful and shrewd black eyes which have an 
occasional gleam of humor; his robe is mingled black and 
white, his turban is a fine camels-hair shawl; his legs are 
bare, but he wears pointed red-morocco slippers. There 
is a long confab between him and the dragoman, over pipes 
and coffee, about the down trip. It seems that there is a 
dahabeeh at Assouan, carrying the English Prince Arthur 
and a Moslem Prince, which has been waiting for ten days 
the whim of the royal scion, to make the ascent. Meantime 
no other boat can go up or down. The cataract business is 
at a standstill. The government has given orders that no 
other boat shall get in the way; and many travelers' boats 
have been detained from one to two weeks ; some of them 
have turned back, without seeing Nubia, unable to spend any 
longer time in a vexatious uncertainty. The prince has 
signified his intention of coming up the Cataract tomorrow 
morning, and consequently we cannot go down, although the 
descending channel is not the same as the ascending. A 
considerable fleet of boats is now at each end of the cataract, 
powerless to move. 

The cataract people express great dissatisfaction at this 
interference in their concerns by the government, which does 
not pay them as much as the ordinary traveler does for passing 
the cataract. And yet they have their own sly and mysterious 
method of dealing with boats that is not less annoying than 
the government favoritism. They will very seldom take a 
dahabeeh through in a day ; they have delight in detaining it 
in the rapids and showing their authority. 

When, at length, the Reis comes into the cabin, to pay us a 
visit of courtesy, he is perfect in dignity and good-breeding, 
in spite of his bare legs ; and enters into a discourse of the 
situation with spirit and intelligence. In reply to a remark, 
that, in America we are not obliged to wait for princes, his 
eyes sparkle, as he answers, with much vivacity of manner, 

" You quite right. In Egypt we are in a mess. Egypt is a 
ewe sheep from which every year they shear the wool close 



AN INLAND EXCURSION. 329 

off; the milk that should go the lamb they drink; and when 
the poor old thing dies, they give the carcass to the people — 
the skin they cut up among themselves. This season," he 
goes on, " is to the cataracts like what the pilgrimage is to 
Mecca and to Jerusalem — the time when to make the money 
from the traveler. And when the princes they come, crowd- 
ing the traveler to one side, and the government makes 
everything done for them for nothing, and pays only one 
dollar for a turkey for which the traveler pays two, 'bliges 
the people to sell their provisions at its own price," — the 
sheykh stopped. 

" The Reis, then, Abd-el-Atti, doesn't fancy this method of 
doing business?" 

" No, him say he not like it at all." 

And the Reis kindled up, " You may call the Prince anything 
you like, you may call him king; but the real Sultan is the man 
who pays his money and does not come here at the cost of the 
government. Great beggars some of these big nobility ; all the 
great people want the Viceroyal to do 'em charity and take 'em 
up the Nile, into Abyssinia, I don't know where all. I think the 
greatest beggars always those who can best afford to pay." 

With this philosophical remark the old Sheykh concludes a 
long harangue, the substance of which is given above, and takes 
his leave with a hundred complimentary speeches. 

Forced to wait, we employed Monday advantageously in 
exploring the land-route to Assouan, going by Mahatta, where 
the trading-boats lie and piles of merchandise lumber the shore. 
It is a considerable village, and full of most persistent beggars 
and curiosity venders. The road, sandy and dusty, winds 
through hills of granite boulders — a hot and desolate though not 
deserted highway, for strings of camels, with merchandise, were 
in sight the whole distance. We passed through the ancient 
cemetery, outside of Assouan, a dreary field of sand and rocks, 
the leaning grave-stones covered with inscriptions in old Arabic, 
(or Cufic), where are said to rest the martyred friends of the 
prophet who perished in the first battle with the infidels above 
Philse. 



330 THE SYENITE QUARRIES. 

Returning, we made a detour to the famous syenite quarries, 
the openings of several of which are still visible. They were 
worked from the sides and not in pits, and offer little to interest 
the ordinary sight-seer. Yet we like to see where the old work- 
men chipped away at the rocks ; there are frequent marks of the 
square holes that they drilled, in order to split off the stone with 
wet wedges of wood. The great obelisk which lies in the quarry, 
half covered by sand, is unfinished ; it is tapered from the base 
to its tip, ninety-eight feet, but it was doubtless, as the marks 
indicate, to be worked down to the size of the big obelisk at 
Karnak; the part which is exposed measures ten to eleven feet 
square. It lies behind ledges of rock, and it could only have 
been removed by cutting away the enormous mass in front of it 
or by hoisting it over. The suggestion of Mr. Wilkinson that it 
was to be floated out by a canal, does not commend itself to one 
standing on the ground. 

We came back by the long road, the ancient traveled way, 
along which, on the boulders, are rudely-cut sculptures and 
hieroglyphics, mere scratchings on the stone, but recording the 
passage of kings and armies as long ago as the twelfth dynasty. 
Nearly all the way from Assouan to Philae are remains of a huge 
wall of unburnt bricks, ten to fifteen feet broad and probably 
fifteen to twenty feet high, winding along the valley and over 
the low ridges. An apparently more unnecessary wall does not 
exist ; it is said by people here to have been thrown up by the 
Moslems as a protection against the Nubians when they first 
traversed this desert ; but it is no doubt Roman. There are 
indications that the Nile once poured its main flood through this, 
opening. 

We emerge not far from the south end of the railway track, 
and at the deserted Austrian Mission. A few Nubian families 
live in huts on the bank of the stream. Among the bright-eyed 
young ladies, with shining hair, who entreat backsheesh, while 
we are waiting for our sandal, is the daughter of our up-river 
pilot. We should have had a higher opinion of his dignity and 
rank if we had not seen his house and his family. 

After sunset the dahabeehs of the Prince came up and were 



ADIEU TO PHIL2E. 33 1 



received with salutes by the waiting boats, which the royal craft 
did not return. Why the dragoman of the arriving dahabeeh 
came to ours with the Prince's request, as he said, for our cards, 
we were not informed; we certainly intended no offence by the 
salute; it was, on the part of the other boats, a natural expression 
of pleasure that the royal boat was at last out of the way. 

At dark we loose from lovely Philse, in order to drop down to 
Mahatta and take our station for running the cataract in the 
morning. As we draw out from the little fleet of boats, Irish, 
Hungarian, American, English, rockets and blue lights illumine 
the night, and we go off in a blaze of glory. Regardless of the 
Presence, the Irish gentleman responds on his cornet with the 
Star-Spangled Banner, the martial strains of which echo from 
all the hills. 

In a moment, the lights are out, the dahabeehs disappear and 
the enchanting island is lost to sight. We are gliding down the 
swift and winding channel, through granite walls, under the 
shadow of giant boulders, immersed in the gloom of a night 
which the stars do not penetrate. Thei'e is no sound save the 
regular, chopping fall of the heavy sweeps, which steady the 
timorous boat, and are the only sign, breaking the oppressive 
silence, that we are not a phantom ship in a world of shades. 
It is a short but ghostly voyage, and we see at length with a sigh 
of relief the lines of masts and spars in the port of Mahatta. 
Working the boat through the crowd that lie there we moor for 
the night, with the roar of the cataract in our ears. 




CHAPTER XXVII. 



RETURNING. 



WE ARE on deck before sunrise, a film is over the sky 
and a light breeze blows out our streamer — a bad 
omen for the passage. 

The downward run of the Cataract is always made in the early 
morning, that being the time when there is least likely to be any 
wind. And a calm is considered absolutely necessary to the 
safety of the boat. The north wind, which helps the passage 
up, would be fatal going down. The boat runs with the current, 
and any exterior disturbance would whirl her about and cast 
her uppn the rocks. 

If we are going this morning, we have no time to lose, for it 
is easy to see that this breeze, which is now uncertainly dallying, 
with our colors, will before long strengthen. The Cataract 
people begin to arrive ; there is already a blue and white row of 
them squatting on the bank above us, drawing their cotton robes 
about them, for the morning is a trifle chilly. They come loiter- 
ing along the bank and sit down as if they were merely spectators, 
and had no interest in the performance. 

The sun comes, and scatters the cloud-films ; as the sun rises 

we are ready to go; everything has been made snug and fast 

above and below; and the breeze has subsided entirely. We 

ought to take instant advantage of the calm ; seconds count, 

now. But we wait for the Reis of the Cataract, the head reis, 

without whose consent no move can be made. It is the sly old 

sheykh with whom we have already negociated, and he has his 

reasons for delaying. By priority of arrival at Philse our boat 

009 



KIDNAPPING A SHE YKH. 333 

is entitled to be first taken down ; but the dragoman of another 
boat has been crossing the palms of the guileless patriarch with 
gold pieces, and he has agreed to give the other boat the pref- 
erence. It is not probable that the virtuous sheykh ever 
intended to do so, but he must make some show of keeping his 
bargain. He would like to postpone our voyage, and take the 
chances of another day. 

But here he comes, mounted on a donkey, in state, wrapped 
about the head and neck in his cashmere, and with a train of 
attendants — the imperturbable, shrewd old man. He halts a 
moment on the high bank, looks up at our pennant, mutters 
something about " wind, not good day, no safe," and is coolly 
about to ride by. 

Our dragoman in an instant is at his side, and with half- 
jocular but firm persistence, invites him to dismount. It is in 
vain that the sheykh invents excuse after excuse for going on. 
There is a neighbor in the village whose child is dead, and he 
must visit him. The consolation, Abd-el-Atti thinks, can be 
postponed an hour or two, Allah is all merciful. He is chilly, 
his fingers are cold, he will just ride to the next house and warm 
his hands, and by that time we can tell whether it is to be a 
good morning; Abd-el-Atti is sure that he can warm his fingers 
much better on our boat, in fact he can get warm all through 
there. 

"I'll warm him if he won't come." continues the dragoman, 
turning to us ; " if I let him go by, the old rascal, he slip down 
to Assouan, and that become the last of him." 

Before the patriarch knows exactly what has happened, or the 
other dragoman can hinder, he is gently hustled down the steep 
bank aboard our boat. There is a brief palaver, and then he is 
seated, with a big bowl of coffee and bread ; we are still waiting, 
but it is evident that the decisive nod has been given. The 
complexion of affairs has changed ! 

The people are called from the shore; before we interpret 
rightly their lazy stir, they are swarming on board. The men 
are getting their places on the benches at the oars — three stout 
fellows at each oar; it looks like" business." The three principal 



334 SEVEN HUNDRED RELATIONS. 

reises are on board ; there are at least a dozen steersmen ; 
several heads of families are present, and a dozen boys. More 
than seventy-five men have invaded us — and they may all be 
needed to get ropes ashore in case of accident. This unusual 
swarm of men and the assistance of so many sheykhs, these 
extra precautions, denote either fear, or a desire to impress us 
with the magnitude of the undertaking. The head reis shakes 
his head at the boat and mutters, " much big." We have aboard 
almost every skillful pilot of the rapids. 

The Cataract flag, two bands of red and yellow with the name 
of " Allah " worked on it in white, is set up by the cabin stairs. 

There is a great deal of talking, some confusion, and a little 
nervousness. Our dragoman cheerfully says, " we will hope 
for the better," as the beads pass through his fingers. The reises 
are audibly muttering their prayers. The pilots begin to strip 
to their work. A bright boy of twelve years, squat on deck by 
the tiller, is loudly and rapidly reciting the Koran. 

At the last moment, the most venerable reis of the cataract 
comes on board, as a great favor to us. He has long been 
superannuated, his hair is white, his eye-sight is dim, but when 
he is on board all will go well. Given a conspicous seat in 
a chair on the cabin deck, he begins at once prayers for our safe 
passage. This sheykh is very distinguished, tracing his ancestry 
back beyond the days of Abraham ; his family is very large — 
seven hundred is the number of his relations; this seems to be 
a favorite number ; Ali Moorad at Luxor has also seven hundred 
relations. The sheykh is treated with great deference ; he seems 
to have had something to do with designing the cataract, and 
opening it to the public. 

The last rope is hauled in ; the crowd on shore cheer ; our 
rowers dip the oars, and in a moment we are sweeping along 
in the stiff current, avoiding the boulders on either side. We 
go swiftly. Everybody is muttering prayers now ; two venerable 
reises seated on a box in front of the rudder increase the 
speed of their devotions ; and the boy chants the Koran with a 
freer swing. 

Our route down is not the same as it was up. We pass the 



MAKING THE CHUTE. 335 

head of the chief rapid — in which we struggle — into which it 
would need only a wink of the helm to tnrn us — and sweep away 
to the west side ; and even appear to go a little out of our way 
to run near a precipice of rock. A party of ladies and gentle-, 
men who have come down from their dahabeeh above, to see 
us make the chlite, are standing on the summit, and wave 
handkerchiefs and hats as we rush by. 

Before us, we can see the great rapids — a down-hill prospect. 
The passage is narrow, and so crowded is the hurrying water 
that there is a ridge down the centre. On this ridge, which is 
broken and also curved, we are to go. If it were straight, it 
would be more attractive, but it curves short to the right near 
the bottom of the rapid, and, if we do not turn sharp with it, 
we shall dash against the rocks ahead, where the waves strike 
in curling foam. All will depend upon the skill and strength 
of the steersmen, and the sheer at the exact instant. 

There is not long to think of it, however, and no possibility 
now of evading the trial. Before we know it, the nose of the 
boat is in the rapid, which flings it up in the air ; the next second 
we are tossed on the waves. The bow dips, and a heavy wave 
deluges the cook's domain ; we ship a tun or two of water, the 
dragoman, who stands forward, is wet to his breast; but the 
boat shakes it off and rises again, tossed like an egg-shell. It is 
glorious. The boat obeys her helm admirably, as the half-dozen 
pilots, throwing their weight upon the tiller, skillfully veer it 
slightly or give it a broad sweep. 

It is a matter of only three or four minutes, but they are 
minutes of intense excitement. In the midst of them, the reis 
of our boat, who has no command now and no responsibility, 
and is usually imperturbably calm, becomes completely unmanned 
by the strain upon his nerves, and breaks forth into convulsive 
shouting, tears and perspiration running down his cheeks. He 
has " the power," and would have hysterics if he were not a man. 
A half-dozen people fly to his rescue, snatch off his turban, hold 
his hands, mop his face, and try to call him out of his panic. 
By the time he is somewhat composed, we have shunned the 
rocks and made the turn, and are floating in smoother but still 



336 GOMEL V MUTTON. 



swift water. The rei'ses shake hands and come to us with salams 
and congratulations. The chief pilot desires to put my fez on 
his own head in token of great joy and amity. The boy stops 
shouting the Koran, the prayers cease, the beads are put up. It 
is only when we are in a tight place that it is necessary to call 
upon the name of the Lord vigorously. 

" You need not have feared," says a rei's of the Cataract to ours, 
pointing to the name on the red and yellow flag, " Allah would 
bring us through." 

That there was no danger in this passage we cannot affirm. 
The dahabeehs that we left at Mahatta, ready to go down, and 
which might have been brought through that morning, were de- 
tained four or five days upon the whim of the reises. Of the two 
that came first, one escaped with a slight knock against the rocks, 
and the other was dashed on them, her bottom staved in, and 
half filled with water immediately. Fortunately, she was fast on 
the rock; the passengers, luggage, and stores were got ashore; 
and after some days the boat was rescued and repaired. 

For a mile below this chtlte we have rapid going, rocks to shun, 
short turns to make, and quite uncertainty enough to keep us on 
the qui vive, and finally, another lesser rapid, where there is in- 
finitely more noise by the crew, but less danger from the river 
than above. 

As we approach the last rapid, a woman appears in the swift 
stream, swimming by the help of a log — that being the handy 
ferry-boat of the country ; her clothes are all in a big basket, 
and the basket is secured on her head. The sandal, which is 
making its way down a side channel, with our sheep on board, 
is signalled to take this lady of the lake in, and land her on the 
opposite shore. These sheep of ours, though much tossed about, 
seem to enjoy the voyage and look about upon the raging scene 
with that indifference which comes of high breeding. They are 
black, but that was not to their prejudice in their Nubian home. 
They are comely animals in life, and in death are the best mutton 
in the East ; it is said that they are fed on dates, and that this 
diet imparts to their flesh its sweet flavor. I think their excel- 
lence is quite as much due to the splendid air they breathe. 



JA'TLESS CHILDREN OF THE SUN ! 337 

While we are watching the manoeuvring of the boat, the woman 
swims to a place where she can securely lodge her precious log 
in the rocks and touch bottom with her feet. The boat follows 
her and steadies itself against the same rocks, about which the 
swift current is swirling. The water is up to the woman's neck, 
and the problem seems to be to get the clothes out of the basket 
which is on her head, and put them on, and not wet the clothes. 
It is the old myth of Venus rising from the sea, but under changed 
conditions, and in the face of modern sensitiveness. How it was 
accomplished, I cannot say, but when I look again the aquatic 
Venus is seated in the sandal, clothed, dry, and placid. 

We were an hour passing the rapids, the last part of the 
time with a strong wind against us ; if it had risen sooner we 
should have had serious trouble. As it was, it took another 
hour with three men at each oar, to work down to Assouan 
through the tortuous channel, which is full of rocks and 
whirlpools, The men at each bank of oars belonged to 
different tribes, and they fell into a rivalry of rowing, which 
resulted in an immense amount of splashing, spurting, yelling,, 
chorusing, and calling on the Prophet. When the contest 
became hot, the oars were all at sixes and sevens, and in fact 
the rowing gave way to vituperation and a general scrimmage. 
Once, in one of the most ticklish places in the rapids, the 
rowers had fallen to quarrelling, and the boat would have 
gone to smash, if the reis had not rushed in and laid about 
him with a stick. These artless children of the sun ! How- 
ever we came down to our landing in good form, exchanging 
salutes with the fleet of boats waiting to make the ascent. 

At once four boats, making a gallant show with their 
spread wings, sailed past us, bound up the cataract. The 
passengers fired salutes, waved their handkerchiefs, and exhib- 
ited the exultation they felt in being at last under way for 
Philae; and well they might, for some of them had been 
waiting here fifteen days. 

But alas for their brief prosperity. The head reis was not 
with them; that autocrat was still upon our deck, leisurely 
stowing awav coffee, eggs, cold meat, and whatever provisions 
■ 22 



338 ^ MODEL OF INTEGRITY. 

were brought him, with the calmness of one who has a good 
conscience. As the dahabeehs swept by he shook his head and 
murmured, "not much go." 

And they did "not much go." They stopped indeed, and 
lay all day at the first gate, and all night. The next morning, 
two dahabeehs, carrying persons of rank, passed up, and were 
given the preference, leaving the first-comers still in the 
rapids; and two days after, they were in mid-passage, and 
kept day after day in the roar and desolation of the cataract, 
at the pleasure of its owners. The only resource they had 
was to write indignant letters of remonstrance to the governor 
at Assouan. 

This passage of the cataract is a mysterious business, the 
secrets of which are only mastered by patient study. Why 
the reises should desire to make it so vexatious is the prime 
mystery. The traveler who reaches Assouan often finds him- 
self entangled in an invisible web of restraints. There is no 
opposition to his going on ; on the contrary the governor, the 
reises, and everyone overflow with courtesy and helpfulness. 
But, somehow, he does not go on, he is played with from day 
to day. The old sheykh, before he took his affectionate leave 
of us that morning, let out the reason of the momentary 
hesitation he had exhibited in agreeing to take our boat up 
the cataract when we arrived. The excellent owners, honest 
Aboo Yoosef and the plaintive little Jew of Bagdad, had sent 
him a bribe of a whole piece of cotton cloth, and some money 
to induce him to prevent our passage. He was not to refuse, 
.not by any means, for in that case the owners would have 
been liable to us for the hundred pounds forfeit named in the 
contract in case the boat could not be taken up ; but he was 
to amuse us, and encourage us, and delay us, on various 
pretexts, so long that we should tire out and freely choose 
not to go any farther. 

The integrity of the reis was proof against the seduction of 
this bribe; he appropriated it, and then earned the heavy fee 
for carrying us up, in addition. I can add nothing by way of 
eulogium upon this clever old man, whose virtue enabled 
him to withstand so much temptation. 



JUSTICE AT ASSOUAN. 339 

We lay for two days at the island Elephantine, opposite 
Assouan, and have ample time to explore its two miserable 
villages, and to wander over the heaps on heaps, the debris of 
so many successive civilizations. All day. long, women and 
children are clambering over these mounds of ashes, pottery, 
bricks, and fragments of stone, unearthing coins, images, 
beads, and bits of antiquity, which the strangers buy. There 
is nothing else on the island. These indistinguishable mounds 
are almost the sole evidence of the successive occupation of 
ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Ethiopians, Persians, Greeks, 
Romans, Christians, and conquering Arabs. But the grey 
island has an indefinable charm. The northern end is green 
with wheat and palms; but if it were absolutely naked, its 
fine granite outlines would be attractive under this splendid 
sky. The days are lovely, and the nights enchanting, 
l^othing more poetic could be imagined than the silvery 
reaches of river at night, with their fringed islands and 
shores, the stars and the new moon, the uplifted rocks, and 
the town reflected in the stream. 

Of Assouan itself, its palm-groves and dirty huddle of 
dwellings, we have quite enough in a day. Curiosity leads us to 
visit the jail, and we find there, by chance, one of our sailors, 
who is locked up for insubordination, and our venerable reis 
keeping him company, for being inefficient in authority over 
his crew. In front of the jail, under the shade of two large 
acacia trees, the governor has placed his divan and holds his 
levies in the open air, transacting business, and entertaining 
his visitors with coffee and cigars. His excellency is a very 
" smartish," big black fellow, not a negro nor a Nubian 
exactly, but an Ababdeh, from a tribe of desert Arabs; a man 
of some aptitude for affairs and with very little palaver. The 
jail has an outer guard-room, furnished with divans and open 
at both ends, and used as a court of justice. A not formidable 
door leads to the first room, which is some twenty feet square ; 
and here, seated upon the ground with some thirty others, we 
are surprised to recognize our reis. The respectable old 
incapable was greatly humiliated by the indignity. Although 



340 OUR STEERSMAN'S 'ACCCIDENT: 

he was speedily released, his incarceration was a mistake; it 
seemed to break his spirit, and he was sullen and uncheerful 
ever afterwards. His companions were in for trivial offences: 
most of them for not paying the government taxes, or for 
debt to the Khedive, as the phrase was. In an adjoining, 
smaller room, were the great criminals, the thieves and 
murderers. Three murderers were chained together by enor- 
mous iron cables attached to collars about their necks, and 
their wrists were clamped in small wooden stocks. In this 
company were five decent-looking men, who were also bound 
together by heavy chains from neck to neck ; we were told 
that these were the brothers of men who had run away from 
the draft, and that they would be held imtil their relations 
surrendered themselves. They all sat glumly on the ground. 
The jail does not differ in comfort from the ordinary houses ; 
and the men are led out once a day for fresh air ; we saw the 
murderers taking an airing, and exercise also in lugging their 
ponderous irons. 

We departed from Assouan early in the morning, with 
water and wind favorable for a prosperous day. At seven 
o'clock our worthy steersman stranded us on a rock. It was 
a little difficult to do it, for he had to go out of his way and 
to leave the broad and plainly staked-out channel. But he 
did it very neatly. The rock was a dozen feet out of water, 
and he laid the boat, without injury, on the shelving upper 
side of it, so that the current would constantly wash it further 
on, and the falling river would desert it. The steersman was 
born in Assouan and knows every rock and current here, 
even in the dark. This accident no doubt happened out of 
sympathy with the indignity to the reis. That able com- 
mander is curled up on the deck ill, and no doubt felt 
greatly grieved when he felt the grating of the bottom upon 
the rock ; but he was not too ill to exchange glances with the 
serene and ever-smiling steersman. Three hours after the 
stranding, our crew have succeeded in working us a little 
further on than we were at first, and are still busy; surely 
there are in all history no such navigators as these. 

It is with some regret that we leave, or are trying to leave, 



LEA VI NG NUBIA. 341 



Nubia, both on account of its climate and its people. The 
men, various sorts of Arabs as well as the Nubians, are better 
material than the fellaheen below, finer looking, with more 
spirit and pride, more independence and self-respect. They 
are also more barbarous; they carry knives and heavy sticks 
universally, and guns if they can get them, and in many 
places have the reputation of being quarrelsome, turbulent, 
and thieves. But we have rarely received other than cour- 
teous treatment from them. Some of the youngest women 
are quite pretty, or would be but for the enormous nose and 
ear rings, the twisted hair and the oil ; the old women are all 
unnecessarily ugly. The children are apt to be what might 
be called free in apparel, except that the girls wear fringe, 
but the women are as modest in dress and manner as those of 
Egypt. That the highest morality invariably prevails, how- 
ever, one cannot affirm, notwithstanding the privilege of 
husbands, which we are assured is sometimes exercised, of 
disposing of a wife (by means of the knife and the river) who 
may have merely incurred suspicion by talking privately 
with another man. This process is evidently not frequent, 
for women are plenty, and we saw no bodies in the river. 

But our chief regret at quitting Nubia is on account of the 
climate. It is incomparably the finest winter climate I have 
ever known; it is nearly perfect. The air is always elastic 
and inspiring ; the days are full of sun ; the nights are cool 
and refreshing; the absolute dryness seems to counteract the 
danger from changes of temperature. You may do there 
what you cannot in any place in Europe in the winter — get 
warm. You may also, there, have repose without languor. 

We went on the rock at seven and got off at two. The 
governor of Assouan was asked for help and he sent down 
a couple of boat-loads of men, who lifted us off by main 
strength and the power of their lungs. We drifted on, but at 
sunset we were not out of sight of the mosque of Assouan. 
Strolling ashore, we found a broad and rich plain, large 
palm-groves and wheat-fields, and a swarming population — in 
striking contrast to the country above the Cataract. The 



342 ''A PERFECT SHAME!" 

character of the people is wholly different; the women are 
neither so oily, nor have they the wild shyness of the Nubians ; 
they mind their own business and belong to a more civilized 
society; slaves, negroes as black as night, abound in the 
fields. Some of the large wheat-fields are wholly enclosed 
by substantial unburnt brick walls, ten feet high. 

Early in the evening, our serene steersman puts us hard 
aground again on a sandbar. I suppose it was another 
accident. The wife and children of the steersman live at a 
little town opposite the shoal upon which we have so conve- 
niently landed, and I suppose the poor fellow wanted an 
opportunity to visit them. He was not permitted leave of 
absence while the boat lay at Assouan, and now the dragoman 
says that, so far as he is concerned, the permission shall not 
be given fi-om here, although the village is almost in sight; 
the steersman ought to be punished for his conduct, and he 
must wait till he comes up next year before he can see his 
wife and children. It seems a hard case, to separate a man 
from his family in this manner. 

" I think it's a perfect shame," cries Madame, when she 
hears of it, " not to see his family for a year! " 

" But one of his sons is on board, you know, as a sailor. 
And the steersman spent most of his time with his wife the 
boy's mother, when we were at Assouan." 

"I thought you said his wife lived opposite here.?" 

"Yes, but this is a newer one, a younger one; that is his 
old wife, in Assouan." 

"Oh!" 

" The poor fellow has another in Cairo." 

"Oh!" 

" He has wives, I daresay, at proper distances along the 
Nile, and whenever he wants to spend an hour or two with 
his family, he runs us aground." 

" I don't care to hear anything more about him," 

The Moslem religion is admirably suited to the poor mariner, 
and especially to the sailor on the Nile through a country that 
is all length and no width. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



MODERN FACTS AND ANCIENT MEMORIES. 

• 

ON a high bluff stands the tottering temple of KomOmbos 
conspicuous from a distance, and commanding a dreary- 
waste of desert. Its gigantic columns are of the Ptolemaic 
time, and the capitals show either Greek influence or the relax- 
ation of the Egyptian hieratic restraint. 

The temple is double, with two entrances and parallel suites 
of apartments, a happy idea of the builders, impartally to split 
the difference between good and evil ; one side is devoted to the 
worship of Horus, the embodiment of the principle of Light, and 
the other to that of Savak, the crocodile-headed god of Darkness. 
I fear that the latter had here the more worshippers; his title 
was Lord of Ombos, and the fear of him spread like night. On 
the sand-bank, opposite, the once-favored crocodiles still lounge 
in the sun, with a sharp eye out for the rifle of the foreigner, and, 
no doubt, wonder at the murderous spirit which has come into 
the world to supplant the peaceful heathenism. 

These ruins are an example of the jealousy with which the 
hierarchy guarded their temples from popular intrusion. The 
sacred precincts were enclosed by a thick and high brick wall, 
which must have concealed the temple from view except on the 
river side ; so formidable was this wall, that although the edifice 
stands upon an eminence, it lies in a basin formed by the ruins 
of the enclosure. The sun beating in it at noon converted it into 
a reverberating furnace — a heat sufficient to melt any image not 
of stone, and not to be endured by persons who do not believe in 
Savak. 

343 



344 THE MYSTERIOUS PEBBLE. 

We walked a long time on the broad desert below Ombos, 
over sand as hard as a sea-beach pounded by the waves, looking 
for the bed of pebbles mentioned in the handbook, and found it 
a couple of miles below. In the soft bank an enormous mass 
of pebbles has been deposited, and is annually added to — sweep- 
ings of the Nubian deserts, flints and agates, bits of syenite from 
Assouan, and colored stones in great variety. There is a tradition 
that a sailor once found a valuable diamond here, and it seems 
always possible that one may pick some precious jewel out 
of the sand. Some of the desert pebbles, polished by ages of 
sand-blasts, are very beautiful. 

Every day when I walk upon the smooth desert away from the 
river, I look for colored stones, pebbles, flints, chalcedonies, and 
agates. And I expect to find, some day, the ewige pebble, the 
stone translucent, more beautiful than any in the world — perhaps, 
the lost seal of Solomon, dropped by some wandering Bedawee. 
I remind myself of one looking, always in the desert, for the 
pearl of great price, which all the markets and jewelers of the 
world wait for. It seems possible, here under this serene sky, 
on this expanse of sand, which has been trodden for thousands 
of years by all the Oriental people in turn, by caravans, by mer- 
chants and warriors and wanderers, swept by so many geologic 
floods and catastrophes, to find it. I never tire of looking, and 
curiously examine every bit of translucent and variegated flint 
that sparkles in the sand. I almost hope, when I find it, that it 
vv'ill not be cut by hand of man, but that it will be changeable in 
color, and be fashioned in a cunning manner by nature herself. 
Unless, indeed, it should be, as I said, the talismanic ring of 
Solomon, which is known to be somewhere in the world. 

In the early morning we have drifted down to Silsilis, one of 
the most interesting localities on the Nile. The difference in 
the level of the land above and below and the character of the 
rocky passage at Silsilis teach that the first cataract was here 
, before the sandstone dam wore away and transferred it to Assou- 
an. Marks have been vainly sought here for the former height of 
theNile above ; and we were interested in examining the upper 
strata of rocks laid bare in the quarries. At a height of perhaps 



ANCIENT QUARRIES OF EGYPT. 345 

sixty feet fram the floor of a quarry, we saw between two strata 
of sandstone a layer of other material that had exactly the 
appearance of the deposits of the Nile which so closely resemble 
rock along the shore. Upon reaching it we found that it was 
friable and, in fact, a sort of hardened earth. Analysis would 
show whether it is a Nile deposit, and might contribute some- 
thing to the solution of the date of the catastrophe here. 

The interest at Silsilis is in these vast sandstone quarries, and 
very little in the excavated grottoes and rock-temples on the 
west shore, with their defaced and smoke-obscured images. 
Indeed, nothing in Egypt, not even the temples and pyramids, 
has given us such an idea of the immense labor the Egyptians 
expended in building, as these vast excavations in the rock. We 
have wondered before where all the stone came from that we 
have seen piled up in buildings and heaped in miles of ruins ; we 
wonder now what use could have been made of all the stone 
•quarried from these hills. But we remember that it was not 
removed in a century, nor in ten centuries, but that for great 
periods of a thousand years workmen were hewing here, and 
that much of the stone transported and scattered over Egypt 
has sunk into the soil out of sight. 

There are half a dozen of these enormous quarries close together, 
each of which has its communication with the river. The 
method of working was this : — a narrow passage was cut in from 
the river several hundred feet into the mountain, or until the 
best-working stone was reached, and then the excavation was 
broadened out without limit. We followed one of these passages, 
the sides of which are evenly-cut rock, the height of the hill. 
At length we came into an open area, like a vast cathedral in 
the mountain, except that it wanted both pillars and roof. The 
floor was smooth, the sides were from fifty to seventy-five feet 
high, and all perpendicular, and as even as if dressed down with 
chisel and hammer. This was their general character, but in 
some of them steps were left in the wall and platforms, showing 
perfectly the manner of working. The quarrymen worked from 
the top down perpendicularly, stage by stage. We saw one of 
these platforms, a third of the distance from the top, the only 



346 PRODIGIES OF LABOR. 

means of reaching which was by nicks cut in the face of the 
rock, in which one might plant his feet and swing down by a rope. 
There was no sign of splitting by drilling or by the the use of 
plugs, or of any explosive material. The walls of the quarries 
are all cut down in fine lines that run from top to bottom slant- 
ingly and parallel. These lines have every inch or two round 
cavities, as if the stone had been bored by some flexible instru- 
ment that turned in its progress. The workmen seem to have 
cut out the stone always of the shape and size they wanted to 
use ; if it was for a statue, the place from which it came in the 
quarry is rounded, showing the contour of the figure taken. 
They took out every stone by the most patient labor. Whether 
it was square or round, they cut all about it a channel four to 
five inches wide, and then separated it from the mass underneath 
by a like broad cut. Nothing was split away ; all was carefully 
chiseled out, apparently by small tools. Abandoned work, 
unfinished, plainly shows this. The ages and the amount of 
labor required to hew out such enormous quantities of stone are 
heightened in our thought, by the recognition of this slow 
process. And what hells these quarries must have been for the 
workmen, exposed to the blaze of a sun intensified by the glaring 
reflection from the light-colored rock, and stifled for want of air. 
They have left the marks of their unending task in these little 
chiselings on the face of the sandstone walls. Here and there 
some one has rudely sketched a figure or outlined a hieroglyphic. 
At intervals places are cut in the rock through which ropes 
could be passed, and these are worn deeply, showing the use of 
ropes, and no doubt of derricks, in handling the stones. 

These quarries are as deserted now as the temples which were 
taken from them ; but nowhere else in Egypt was I more im- 
pressed with the duration, the patience, the greatness of the 
race that accomplished such prodigies of labor. 

The grottoes, as I said, did not detain us; they are common 
calling-places, where sailors and wanderers often light fires at 
night and where our crew slept during the heat of this day. We 
saw there nothing more remarkable than the repeated figure of 
the boy Horus taking nourishment from the breast of his mother, 



HUMOR IN STONE. 34.7 



which provoked the irreverent remark of a voyager that Horus 
was more fortunate than his dragoman had been in finding milk 
in this stony region. 

Creeping on, often aground and always expecting to be, the 
weather growing warmer as we went north, we reached 
Edfoo. It was Sunday, and the temperature was like that of 
a July day, a south wind and the mercury at 85°. 

In this condition of affairs it was not unpleasant to find a 
temple, entire, clean, perfectly excavated, and a cool retreat 
from the glare of the sun. It was not unlike entering a 
cathedral. The door by which we were admitted was closed 
and guarded; we were alone; and we experienced something 
of the sentiment of the sanctuary, that hush and cool serenity 
which is sometimes mistaken for religion, in the presence of 
ecclesiastical architecture. 

Although this is a Ptolemaic temple, it is, by reason of its 
nearly perfect condition, the best example for study. The 
propylon which is two hundred and fifty feet high and one 
hundred and fifteen long, contains many spacious chambers, 
and confirms our idea that these portions of the temples were 
residences. The roof is something enormous, being composed 
of blocks of stone, three feet thick, by twelve wide, and 
twenty-two long. Upon this roof are other chambers. As 
we wandered through the vast pillared courts, many cham- 
bers and curious passages, peered into the secret ways and 
underground and intermural alleys, and emerged upon the 
roof, we thought what a magnificent edifice it must have 
been for the gorgeous processions of the old worship, which 
are sculptured on the walls. 

But outside this temple and only a few feet from it is a 
stone wall of circuit, higher than the roof of the temple itself. 
Like every inch of the temple walls, this wall outside and 
inside is covered with sculptures, scenes in river life, showing 
a free fancy and now and then a dash of humor ; as, when a 
rhinoceros is made to tow a boat — recalling the western 
sportiveness of David Crockett with the alligator. Not only 
did this wall conceal the temple from the vulgar gaze, but 



.348 ^ STORM ON THE RIVER. 

■outside it was again an enciente of unbaked brick, eflFectually 
excluding and removing to a safe distance all the populace. 
Mariette Bey is of the opinion that all the imposing ceremonies 
of the old ritual had no witnesses except the privileged ones 
of the temple ; and that no one except the king could enter 
the adytum. 

It seems to us also that the King, who was high priest and 
King, lived in these palace-temples, the pylons of which 
served him for fortresses as well as residences. We find no 
ruins of palaces in Egypt, and it seems not reasonable that 
the king who had all the riches of the land at his command 
would have lived in a hut of mud. 

From the summit of this pylon we had an extensive view 
of the Nile and the fields of ripening wheat. A glance into 
the squalid town was not so agreeable. I know it would be 
a severe test of any village if it were unroofed and one could 
behold its varied domestic life. We may from such a sight 
as this have some conception of the appearance of this world 
to the angels looking down. Our view was into filthy courts 
and roofless enclosures, in which were sorry women and 
unclad children, sitting in the dirt ; where old people, ema- 
ciated and feeble, and men and women ill of some wasting 
disease, lay stretched upon the ground, uncared for, stifled by 
the heat and swarmed upon of flies. 

The heated day lapsed into a delicious evening, a half-moon 
over head, the water glassy, the shores fringed with palms, 
the air soft. As we came to El Kab, where we stopped, a 
carawan was whistling on the opposite shore — a long, shrill 
whistle like that of a mocking-bird. If we had known, it was 
a warning to us that the placid appearances of the night were 
deceitful, and that violence was masked under this smiling 
aspect. The barometer indeed had been falling rapidly for 
two days. We were about to have our first experience of 
what may be called a simoon. 

Towards nine o'clock, and suddenly, the wind began to 
blow from the north, like one of our gusts in summer, 
preceeding a thunderstorm. The boat took the alarm at 



APATHY OF THE CREW. 349 

once and endeavored to fly, swinging to the wind and tugging 
at her moorings. With great difficulty she was secured by 
strong cables fore and aft anchored in the sand, but she 
trembled and shook and rattled, and the wind whistled 
through the rigging as if we had been on the Atlantic — any 
boat loose upon the river that night must have gone to 
inevitable wreck. It became at once dark, and yet it was a 
ghastly darkness; the air was full of fine sand that obscured 
the sky, except directly overhead, where there were the ghost 
of a wan moon and some spectral stars. Looking upon the 
river, it was like a Connecticut fog — but a sand fog; and the 
river itself roared, and high waves ran against the current. 
When we stepped from the boat, eyes, nose, and mouth were 
instantly choked with sand, and it was almost impossible to 
stand. The wind increased, and rocked the boat like a storm 
at sea; for three hours it blew with much violence, and in 
fact did not spend itself in the whole night. 

"The worser storm, God be merciful," says Abd-el-Atti, 
"ever I saw in Egypt." 

When it somewhat abated, the dragoman recognized a 
divine beneficence in it ; " It show that God 'member us." 

It is a beautiful belief of devout Moslems that personal 
afflictions and illnesses are tokens of a heavenly care. Often 
when our dragoman has been ill, he has congratulated himself 
that God was remembering him. 

"Not so? A friend of me in Cairo was never in his life ill, 
never any pain, toothache, headache, nothing. Always wpll. 
He begin to have fear that something should happen, mebbe 
God forgot him. One day I meet him in the Mooskee very 
much pleased ; all right now, he been broke him the arm ; 
God 'member him." 

During the gale we had a good specimen of Arab character. 
When it was at its height, and many things about the attacked 
vessel needed looking after, securing and tightening, most of 
the sailors rolled themselves up, drawing their heads into 
their burnouses, and went sound asleep. The after-sail was 
blown loose and flapping in the wind ; our reis sat com- 
posedly looking at it, never stirring from his haunches, 



350 THE GROTTOES OF EILETHYAS. 

and let the canvas whip to rags; finally a couple of men were 
aroused, and secured the shreds. The Nile crew is a marvel 
of helplessness in an emergency; and considering the dangers 
of the river to these top-heavy boats, it is a wonder that any 
accomplish the voyage in safety. There is no more discipline 
on board than in a district-school meeting at home. The 
boat might as well be run by ballot. 

It was almost a relief to have an unpleasant day to talk 
about. The forenoon was like a mixed fall and spring day in 
New England, strong wind, flying clouds, but the air full of 
sand instead of snow ; there was even a drop of rain, and we 
heard a peal or two of feeble thunder— evidently an article 
not readily manufactured in this country ; but the afternoon 
settled back into the old pleasantness. 

Of the objects of interest at Eilethyas I will mention only 
two, the famous grottoes, and a small temple of Amunoph 
III., not often visited. It stands between two and three miles 
from the river, in a desolate valley, down which the Bisharee 
Arabs used to come on marauding excursions. What freak 
placed it in this remote solitude.-' It contains only one room, 
a few paces square, and is, in fact, only a chapel, but it is full 
of capital pieces of sculptures of a good period of art. The 
architect will find here four pillars, which clearly suggest the 
Doric style. They are fourteen-sided, but one of the planes 
is broader than the others and has a raised tablet of sculp- 
tures which terminate above in a face, said to be that of 
Lucina, to whom the temple is dedicated, but resembling the 
cow-headed Isis. These pillars, with the sculptures on one 
side finished at the top with a head, may have suggested the 
Osiride pillars. 

The grottoes are tombs in the sandstone mountain, of the 
time of the eighteenth dynasty, which began some thirty-five 
hundred years ago. Two of them have remarkable sculptures, 
the coloring of which is still fresh ; and I wish to speak of 
them a little, because it is from them (and some of the same 
character) that Egyptologists have largely reconstructed for 
us the common life of the ancient Egyptians. Although the 



DOMESTIC LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT 351 

work is somewhat rude, it has a certain veracity of execution 
which is pleasing. 

We assume this tomb to have been that of a man of wealth. 
This is the ante-chamber ; the mummy was deposited in a pit 
let into a small excavation in the rear. On one wall are 
sculptured agricultural scenes : plowing, sowing, reaping 
wheat and pulling doora (the color indicates the kind of 
grain), hatcheling the latter, while oxen are treading out the 
wheat, and the song of the threshers encouraging the oxen 
is written in hieroglyphics above ; the winnowing and storing 
of the grain ; in a line under these, the various domestic 
animals of the deceased are brought forward to a scribe, who 
enumerates them and notes the numbers on a roll of papyrus. 
There are river-scenes: — grain is loaded into freight-boats; 
pleasure-dahabeehs are on the stream, gaily painted, with one 
square sail amidship, rowers along the sides, and windows in 
the cabin ; one has a horse and chariot on board, the rei's 
stands at the bow, the overseer, kurbash in hand, is threaten- 
ing the crew, a sailor is falling overboard. Men are gathering 
grapes, and treading out the wine with their feet; others are 
catching fish and birds in nets, and dressing and curing them. 
At the end of this wall, offerings are made to Osiris. In one 
compartment a man is seated holding a boy on his lap. 

On the opposite wall are two large figures, supposed to be 
the occupant of the tomb and his wife, seated on a fauteuil ; 
men and women, in two separate lines, facing the large 
figures, are seated, one leg bent under them, each smelling a 
lotus flower. In the rear, men are killing and cutting up 
animals as if preparing for a feast. To the leg of the fau- 
teuil is tied a monkey; and Mr. Wilkinson says that it was 
customary at entertainments for the hosts to have a " favorite 
monkey " tied to the leg of the chain Notwithstanding the 
appearance of the monkey here in that position, I do not 
suppose that he would say that an ordinary entertainment 
is represented here. For, although there are preparations for 
a feast, there is a priest standing between the friends and the 
principal personages, making offerings, and the monkey may 



352 A REASON' FOR BEGGING. 

be present in his character of emblem of Thoth. It seems to 
be a funeral and not a festive representation. The pictures 
apparently tell the story of the life of the deceased and his 
occupations, and represent the mourning at his tomb. In 
other grottoes, where the married pair are seated as here, the 
arm of the woman on the shoulder of the man, and the "fav- 
orite monkey" tied to the chair, friends are present in the 
act of mourning, throwing dust on their heads, and accom- 
panied by musicians ; and the mummy is drawn on a sledge 
to the tomb, a priest standing on the front, and a person 
pouring oil on the ground that the runners may slip easily. 

The setting sun strikes into these chambers, so carefully 
prepared for people of rank of whom not a pinch of dust now 
remains, and lights them up with a certain cheer and hope. 
We cannot make anything melancholy out of a tomb so high 
and with such a lovely prospect from its front door. The 
former occupants are unknown, but not more unknown than 
the peasants we see on the fields below, still at the tasks depicted 
in these sculptures. Thirty-five hundred years is not so very 
long ago ! Slowly we pick our way down the hill and regain 
our floating home ; and, bidding farewell forever to El Kab, 
drift down in the twilight. In the morning we are at Esneh. 

In Esneh the sound of the grinding is never low. The 
town is full of primitive ox-power mills in which the wheat is 
ground, and there are always dahabeehs staying here for the 
crew to bake their bread. Having already had one day of 
Esneh we are tired of it, for it is exactly like all other 
Egyptian towns of its size: we know all the possible combin- 
ations of mud-hovels, crooked lanes, stifling dust, nakedness, 
squalor. We are so accustomed to picking our way in the 
street amid women and children sprawling in the dirt, that 
the scene has lost its strangeness; it is even difficult to 
remember that in other countries women usually keep in- 
doors and sit on chairs. 

The town is not without liveliness It is half Copt, and 
beggars demand backsheesh on the ground that they are 
Christians, and have a common interest with us. We wander 



GHA W A ZEES A T ESN EH. 353 

through the bazaars where there is nothing to buy and inta 
the market-place, always the most interesting study in aa 
unknown city. The same wheat lies on the ground in heaps; 
the same roots and short stalks of the doora are tied in 
bundles and sold for fuel, and cakes of dried manure for the 
like use; people are lying about in the sun in all picturesque 
attitudes, some curled up and some on their backs fast asleep ; 
more are squating before little heaps of corn or beans or some 
wilted '^greens," or dried tobacco-leaves and pipe-bowls; 
children swarm and tumble about everywhere; donkeys and 
camels pick their way through the groups. 

I spent half an hour in teaching a handsome young Copt 
how to pronounce English words in his Arabic-English 
primer. He was very eager to learn and very grateful for 
assistance. We had a large and admiring crowd about us^ 
who laughed at every successful and still more at every 
unsuccessful attempt on the part of the pupil, and repeated 
the English words themselves when they could catch the 
sound, — an exceedingly good-natured lot of idlers. We found 
the people altogether pleasant, some in the ingrained habit of 
begging, quick to take a joke and easily excited. While I had 
my scholar, a fantasia of music on two tambourines was 
performed for the amusement of my comrade, which had also its 
ring of spectators watching the effect of the monotonous thump- 
ing, upon the grave howadji; he was seated upon the mastabah 
of a shop, with all formality, and enjoyed all the honors of the 
entertainment, as was proper, since he bore the entire expense 
alone, — about five cents. 

The coffee-shops of Esneh are many, some respectable and 
others decidedly otherwise. The former are the least attractive^ 
being merely long and dingy mud-apartments, in which the 
visitors usually sit on the floor and play at draughts. The 
cofi'ee-houses near the river have porticoes and pleasant terraces 
in front, and look not unlike some picturesque Swiss or Italian 
wine-shops. The attraction there seems to be the Ghawazees 
or dancing-girls, of whom there is a large colony here, the 
colony consisting of a tribe. All the family act as procurers 
23 



364: DEADLY WHIFFS. 



for the young women, who are usually married. Their dress is 
an extraordinary combination of stripes and colors, red and 
yellow being favorites, which harmonize well with their dark, 
often black, skins, and eyes heavily shaded with kohl. I 
suppose it must be admitted, in spite of their total want of any 
womanly charm of modesty, that they are the finest-looking 
women in Egypt, though many of them are ugly ; they certainly 
are of a different type from the Egyptians, though not of a pure 
type; they boast that they have preserved themselves without 
admixture with other peoples or tribes from a very remote 
period ; one thing is certain, their profession is as old as history 
and their antiquity may entitle them to be considered an 
aristocracy of vice. They say that their race is allied in origin 
to that of the people called gypsies, with whom many of their 
customs are common. The men are tinkers, blacksmiths, or 
musicians, and the women are the ruling element in the band ; 
the husband is subject to the wife. But whatever their origin, it 
is admitted that their dance is the same as that with which the 
dancing-women amused the Pharaohs, the same that the Phoe- 
nicians carried to Gades and which Juvenal describes, and, 
Mr, Lane thinks, the same by which the daughter of Herodias 
danced off the head of John the Baptist. Modified here and 
there, it is the immemorial dance of the Orient. 

Esneh has other attractions for the sailors of the Nile; there 
are the mahsheshehs, or shops where hasheesh is smoked ; an 
attendant brings the "hubble-bubble" to the guests who are 
lolling on the mastabah ; they inhale their portion, and then lie 
down in'a stupor, which is at every experiment one remove 
nearer idiocy. 

Still drifting, giving us an opportunity to be on shore all the 
morning. We visit the sugar establishment at Mutaneh, and 
walk along the high bank under the shade of the acacias for a 
couple of miles below it. Nothing could be lovelier in this 
sparkling morning — the silver-grey range of mountains across 
the river and the level smiling land on our left. This is one of 
the Viceroy's possessions, bought of one of his relations at a 
price fixed by his highness. There are ten thousand acres of 



UNENDING LEISURE. 355 

arable land, of which some fifteen hundred is in sugar-cane, agid 
the rest in grain. The whole is watered by a steam-pump, 
which sends a vast stream of water inland, giving life to the 
broad fields and the extensive groves, as well as to a village the 
minaret of which we can see. It is a noble estate. Near the 
factory are a palace and garden, somewhat in decay, as is usual 
in this country, but able to offer us roses and lemons. 

The works are large, modern, with improved machinery for 
crushing and boiling, and apparently well managed ; there is 
said to be one of the sixteen sugar-factories of the Khedive 
which pays expenses ; perhaps this is the one. A great quan- 
tity of rum is distilled from the refuse. The vast field in the 
rear, enclosed by a whitewashed wall, presented a lively appear- 
ance, with camels bringing in the cane and unloading it and 
arranging it upon the endless trough for the crushers. In the 
factory, the workmen wear little clothing and are driven to their 
task ; all the overseers march among them kurbash in hand ; the 
sight of the black fellows treading about in the crystallized 
sugar, while putting it up in sacks, would decide a fastidious 
person to take her tea unsweetened. 

The next morning we pass Erment without calling, satisfied 
to take the word of others that you may see there a portrait of 
Cleopatra; and by noon come to our old mooring-place at 
Luxor, and add ours to the painted dahabeeehs lounging in this 
idle and gay resort. 

During the day we enjoyed only one novel sensation. We ate 
of the ripe fruit of the dom-palm. It tastes and smells like stale 
gingerbread, made of sawdust instead of flour. 

I do not know how long one could stay contentedly at Thebes; 
certainly a winter, if only to breathe the inspiring air, to bask in 
the sun, to gaze, never sated, upon plains and soft mountains 
which climate and association clothe with hues of beauty and 
romance, to yield for once to a leisure that is here rebuked by 
no person and by no urgency of affairs; perhaps for years, if one 
seriously attempted a study of antiquities. 

The habit of leisure is at least two thousand years old here; 
at any rate, we fell into it without the least desire to resist its 



356 BOGUS RELICS. 



spell. This is one of the eddies of the world in which the 
modern hurry is unfelt. If it were not for the coughing steam- 
boats and the occasional glimpse one has of a whisking file of 
Cook's tourists, Thebes would be entirely serene, and an admi- 
rable place of retirement. 

It has a reputation, however, for a dubious sort of industry. 
All along the river from Geezeh to Assouan, whenever a spurious 
scarabseus or a bogus image turned up, we would hear, "Yes, 
make 'em in Luxor," As we drew near to this great mart of 
antiquities, the specification became more personal — " Can't tell 
edzacly whether that make by Mr. Smith or by that Moslem in 
Goorneh, over the other side." 

The person named is well known to all Nile voyagers as 
Antiquity Smith, and he has, though I cannot say that he enjoys, 
the reputation hinted at above. How much of it is due to the 
enmity of rival dealers in relics of the dead, I do not know ; 
but it must be evident to anyone that the very clever forgeries 
of antiquities, which one sees, could only be produced by skillful 
and practiced workmen. We had some curiosity to see a man 
who has made the American name so familiar the length of the 
Nile, for Mr. Smith is a citizen of the United States. For 
seventeen years he has been a voluntary exile here, and most 
of the time the only foreigner resident in the place ; long enough 
to give him a good title to the occupation of any grotto he may 
choose. 

In appearance Mr. Smith is somewhat like a superannuated 
agent of the tract society, of the long, thin, shrewd, learned 
Yankee type. Few men have enjoyed his advantages for sharp- 
ening the wits. Born in Connecticut, reared in New Jersey, 
trained for seventeen years among the Arabs and antiquity- 
mongers of this region, the sharpest in the Orient, he ought to 
have not only the learning attached to the best-wrapped mummy, 
but to be able to read the hieroglyphics on the most inscruta- 
ble human face among the living. 

Mr. Smith lives on the outskirts of the village, in a house, 
surrounded by a garden, which is a kind of museum of the 
property, not to say the bones, of the early Egyptians. 



"ANTIQUITY SMITH." 35/7 



"You seem to be retired from society here Mr. Smith," we 
ventured to say. 

"Yes, for eight months of the year, I see nobody, literally 
nobody. It is only during the winter that strangers come here." 

" Isn't it lonesome.? " 

"A little, but you get used to it." 

"What do you do during the hottest months .? " 

"As near nothing as possible." 

" How hot is it } " 

"Sometimes the thermometer goes to 120° Fahrenheit. It 
stays a long time at 100^. The worst of it is that the nights are 
almost as hot as the days." 

" How do you exist } " 

"I keep very quiet, don't write, don't read anything that 
requires the least thought. Seldom go out, never in the day- 
time. In the early morning I sit a while on the verandah, and 
about ten o'clock get into a big bath-tub, which I have on the 
ground-floor, and stay in it nearly all day, reading some very 
mild novel, and smoking the weakest tobacco. In the evening 
I find it rather cooler outside the house than in. A white man 
can't do anything here in the summer." 

I did not say it to Mr. Smith, but I should scarcely like to live 
in a country where one is obliged to be in water half the year, 
like a pelican. We can have, however, from his experience 
some idea what this basin must have been in summer, when its 
area was a crowded city, upon which the sun, reverberated from 
the incandescent limestone hills, beat in unceasing fervor. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE FUTURE OF THE MUMMY's SOUL. 



I SHOULD like to give you a conception, however faint, of 
the Tombs of the ancient Egyptians, for in them is to be found 
the innermost secret of the character, the belief, the immor- 
tal expectation of that accomplished and wise people. A barren 
description of these places of sepulchre would be of small 
service to you, for the key would be wanting, and you would be 
simply confused by a mass of details and measurements, which 
convey no definite idea to a person who does not see them with 
his own eyes. I should not indeed be warranted in attempting 
to say anything about these great Tombs at Thebes, which are 
so completely described in many learned volumes, did I not 
have the hope that some readers, who have never had access to 
the works referred to will be glad to know something of that which 
most engaged the educated Egyptian mind. 

No doubt the most obvious and immediate interest of the 
Tombs of old Egypt, is in the sculptures that depict so minutely 
the lifeof the people, represent all their occupations and associa- 
tions, are, in fact, their domestic and social history written in 
stone. But it is not of this that I wish to speak here ; I want to 
write a word upon the tombs and what they contain, in their 
relation to the future life. 

A study of the tombs of the different epochs, chronologically 
pursued, would show, I think, pretty accurately, the growth of the 
Egyptian theology, its development, or rather its departure from 
the primitive revelation of one God, into the monstrosities of its 
final mixture of coarse polytheistic idolatry and the vaguest 

358 



A NCI EN T EGYP TIA N LI TERA TURE. 359 

pantheism. These two extremes are represented by the beautiful 
places of sepulchre of the fourth and fifth dynasties at Geezeh 
and Memphis, in which all the sculptures relate to the life of the 
deceased and no deities are represented ; and the tombs of 
the twenty-fourth dynasty at Thebes which are so largely covered 
with the gods and symbols of a religion become wholly fantastic. 
It was in the twenty-sixth dynasty (just before the conquest of 
Egypt by the Persians) that the Funeral Ritual received its final 
revision and additions — the sacred chart of the dead which had 
grown, paragraph by paragraph, and chapter by chapter, from 
its brief and simple form in the earliest times. 

The Egyptians had a considerable, and also a rich literature, 
judging by the specimens of it preserved and by the value set 
upon it by classical writers; in which no department of writing 
was unrepresented. The works which would seem of most value 
to the Greeks were doubtless those on agriculture, astronomy, and 
geometry ; the Egyptians wrote also on medicine, but the science 
was empirical then as it is now. They had an enormous bulk 
of historical literature, both in verse and prose, probably as semi- 
fabulous and voluminous as the thousand great volumes of 
Chinese history. They did not lack, either, in the department of 
belles lettres ; there were poets, poor devils no doubt who were 
compelled to celebrate in grandiose strains achievements they did 
not believe ; and essayists and letter-writers, graceful, philosophic, 
humorous. Nor was the field of fiction unoccupied ; some of 
their lesser fables and romances have been preserved ; they are 
however of a religious character, myths of doctrine, and it is safe 
to say different from our Sunday-School tales. The story of 
Cinderella was a religious myth. No one has yet been fortunate 
enough to find an Egyptian novel, and we may suppose that the 
guid-nuftcs, the critics of Thebes, were all the time calling upon 
the writers of that day to make an effort and produce The Great 
Egyptian Novel. 

The most important part, however, of the literature of Egypt 
was the religious, and of that we have, in the Ritual or Book of 
the Dead, probably the most valuable portion. It will be neces- 
sary to refer to this more at length. A copy of the Funeral 



360 ^ MUMMY IN FL£.DGE. 

Ritual, or "The Book of the Manifestation to Light " as it was 
entitled, or some portion of it — probably according to the rank 
or wealth of the deceased, was deposited with every mummy. 
In this point of view, as this document was supposed to be of 
infinite service, a person's wealth would aid him in the next 
world ; but there came a point in the peregrination of every soul 
where absolute democracy was reached, and every man stood 
for judgment on his character. There was a foreshadowing of 
this even in the ceremonies of the burial. When the mummy, 
after the lapse of the seventy days of mourning, was taken by 
the friends to the sacred lake of the nome (district), across 
which it must be transported in the boat of Charon before it 
could be deposited in the tomb, it was subjected to an ordeal. 
Forty-two judges were assembled on the shore of the lake, and 
if anyone accused the deceased, and could prove that he led an 
evil life, he was denied burial. Even kings were subjected to 
this trial, and those who had been wicked, in the judgment of 
their people, were refused the honors of sepulchre. Cases 
were probably rare where one would dare to accuse even a dead 
Pharaoh. 

Debts would sometimes keep a man out of his tomb, both 
because he was wrong in being in debt, and because his tomb 
was mortgaged. For it was permitted a man to mortgage not 
only his family tomb but the mummy of his father, — a kind of 
mortmain security that could not run away, but a ghastly pledge 
to hold. A man's tomb, it would seem, was accounted his chief 
possession ; as the one he was longest to use. It was prepared 
at an expense never squandered on his habitation in life. 

You may see as many tombs as you like at Thebes, you may 
spend weeks underground roaming about in vast chambers or 
burrowing in zig-zag tunnels, until the upper-world shall seem to 
you only a passing show; but you will find little, here or else- 
where, after the Tombs of the Kings, to awaken your keenest 
interest ; and the exploration of a very few of these will suffice 
to satisfy you. We visited these gigantic masoleums twice ; it 
is not an easy trip to them, for they are situated in wild ravines 
or gorges that lie beyond the western mountains which circle the 



THE DESOLATE WAY TO THE TOMBS. 361 

plain and ruins of Thebes. They can be reached by a footpath 
over the crest of the ridge behind Medeenet Haboo ; the ancient 
and usual road to them is up a valley that opens from the north. 

The first time we tried the footpath, riding over the blooming 
valley and leaving our donkeys at the foot of the ascent. I do 
not know how high this mountain backbone may be, but it is not 
a pleasant one to scale. The path winds, but it is steep ; the 
sun blazes on it ; every step is in pulverized limestone, that seems 
to have been calcined by the intense heat, and rises in irritating 
powder; the mountain-side is white, chalky, glaring, reflecting 
the solar rays with blinding brilliancy, and not a breath of 
air comes' to temper the furnace temperature. On the summit 
however there was a delicious breeze, and we stood long looking 
over the great basin, upon the temples, the villages, the verdant 
areas of grain, the patches of desert, all harmonized by the 
wonderful light, and the purple eastern hills — a view unsurpassed. 
The descent to the other side was steeper than the ascent, and 
wound by precipices, on narrow ledges, round sharp turns, 
through jagged gorges, amid rocks striken with the ashy hue of 
death, into the bottoms of intersecting ravines, a region scarred, 
blasted, scorched, a grey Gehenna, more desolate than imagina- 
tion ever conceived. 

Another day we rode to it up the valley from the river, some 
three miles. It is a winding, narrow valley, little more than the 
bed of a torrent; but as we advanced windings became shorter, 
the sides higher, fantastic precipices of limestone frowned on us, 
and there was evidence of a made road and of rocks cut away 
to broaden it. The scene is wilder, more freakishly savage, as 
we go on, and knowing that it is a funereal way and that only, 
and that it leads to graves and to nothing else, our procession 
imperceptibly took on the sombre character of an expedition 
after death, relieved by I know not what that is droll in the 
impish forms of the crags, and the reaction of our natures against 
this unnecessary accumulation of grim desolation. The sun 
overhead was like a dish from which poured liquid heat, I 
could feel the waves, I thought I could see it running in streams 
down th<e crumbling ashy slopes ; but it was not unendurable, 



362 I^H^ SECRET OF THE TOMBS. 

for the air was pure and elastic and we had no sense of weariness; 
indeed, now and then a puff of desert air suddenly greeted us 
as we turned a corner. The slender strip of sky seen above the 
grey limestone was of astonishing depth and color — a purple, 
almost like a night sky, but of unimpeachable delicacy. 

Up this strange road were borne in solemn state, as the 
author of Job may have seen, " the kings a?id counsellors of the 
earth, which built desolate places for themselves j " the journey was 
a fitting prelude to an entry into the depths of these frightful 
hills. It must have been an awful march, awful in its errand, 
awful in the desolation of the way : and, in the heat of summer, 
a mummy passing this way might have melted down in his cer~ 
ciieil before he could reach his cool retreat. 

When we come to the end of the road, we see no tombs. 
There are paths winding in several directions, round projecting 
ridges and shoulders of powdered rock, but one might pass, 
through here and not know he was in a cemetery. Above the 
rubbish here and there we see, when they are pointed out, holes 
in the rock. We climb one of these heaps, and behold the 
entrance, maybe half-filled up, of one of the great tombs. This 
entrance may have been laid open so as to disclose a portal cut 
in the face of the rock and a smoothed space in front. Origi- 
nally the tomb was not only walled up and sealed, but rocks 
were tumbled down over it, so as to restore that spot in the hill 
to its natural appearance. The chief object of every tomb was 
to conceal the mummy from intrusion forever. All sorts of 
misleading devices were resorted to for this purpose. 

Twenty-five tombs (of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties) 
have been opened in this locality, but some of them belonged to 
princes and other high functionaries; in a valley west of this are 
tombs of the eighteenth dynasty, and in still another gorge are the 
tombs of the queens. These tombs all differ in plan, in extent, 
in decoration; they are alike in not having, as many others 
elsewhere have, an exterior chamber where friends could assemble 
to mourn; you enter all these tombs by passing through an 
insignificant opening, by an inclined passage, directly into the 
heart of the mountain, and there they open into various halls. 



BUILDING FOR ETERNITY. 353, 

chambers, and grottoes. One of them, that of Sethi I., into whose 
furthermost and most splendid halls Belzoni broke his way, 
extends horizontally four hundred and seventy feet into the 
hill, and descends to a depth of one hundred and eighty 
feet below the opening. The line of direction of the exca- 
vation is often changed, and the continuation skillfully masked, 
so that the explorer may be baffled. You come by several 
descents and passages, through grand chambers and halls, to a 
hall vast in size and magnificently decorated; here is a pit, 
here is the granite sarcophagus ; here is the fitting resting-place 
of the royal mummy. But it never occupied this sarcophagus. 
Somewhere in this hall is a concealed passage. It was by break- 
ing through a wall of solid masonry in such a" room, smoothly 
stuccoed and elaborately painted with a continuation of the 
scenes on the side-walls, that Belzoni discovered the magnifi- 
cent apartment beyond, and at last a chamber that was never 
finished, where one still sees the first draughts of the figures for 
sculpture on the wall, and gets an idea of the bold freedom of 
the old draughtsmen, in the long, graceful lines, made at a stroke 
by the Egyptian artists. Were these inner chambers so elabo- 
rately concealed, by walls and stucco and painting, after the 
royal mummy was somewhere hidden in them } Or was the 
mummy deposited in some obscure lateral pit, and was it the 
fancy of the king himself merely to make these splendid and 
highly decorated inner apartments private .? 

It is not uncommon to find rooms in the tombs unfinished. 
The excavation of the tomb was began when the king began to 
reign ; it was a work of many years and might happen to be un- 
finished at his death. He might himself become so enamoured 
of his enterprise and his ideas might expand in regard to his 
requirements, as those of builders always do, that death would 
find him still excavating and decorating. I can imagine that if 
one thought he were building a house for eternity — or cycles 
beyond human computation, — he would, up to his last moment, 
desire to add to it new beauties and conveniences. And he 
must have had a certain humorous satisfaction in his architect- 
ural tricks, for putting posterity on a false scent about his 
remains. 



DISTURBING THE DEAD. 



It would not be in human nature to leave undisturbed tombs 
containing so much treasure as was buried with a rich or royal 
mummy. The Greeks walked through all these sepulchres; 
they had already been rifled by the Persians ; it is not unlikely 
that some of them had been ransacked by Egyptians, who could 
appreciate jewelry, and fine-work in gold as much as we do that 
found by M. Mariette on the cold person of Queen Aah-hote,p. 
This dainty lady might have begun to flatter herself, having 
escaped through so many ages of pillage, that danger was over, 
but she .had not counted upon there coming an age of science. 
It is believed that she was the mother of Amosis, who expelled 
the Shepherds, and the wife of Karnes, who long ago went to his 
elements. After a repose here at Thebes, not far from the 
temple of Koorneh, of about thirty-five hundred years, Science 
one day cried, — "Aah-hotep of Drah-Aboo-1-neggah ! we want 
you for an Exposition of the industries of all nations at Paris ; 
put on your best things and come forth." 

I suppose that there is no one living who would not like to be 
the first to break into an Egyptian torhb (and there are doubtless 
still some undisturbed in this valley), to look upon its glowing 
paintings before the air had impaired a tint, and to discover a 
sweet and sleeping princess, simply encrusted in gems, and 
cunning work in gold, of priceless value — in order that he might 
add something to our knowledge of ancient art! 

But the government prohibits all excavations by private 
persons. You are permitted, indeed, to go to the common pits 
and carry off an armful of mummies, if you like; but there is no 
pleasure in the disturbance of this sort of mummy; he may 
perhaps be a late Roman ; he has no history, no real antiquity, 
and probably not a scarabaeus of any value about him. 

When we pass out of the glare of the sun and descend the 
incline down which the mummy went, we feel as if we had 
begun his awful journey. On the walls are sculptured the 
ceremonies and liturgies of the dead, the grotesque monsters of 
the under-world, which will meet him and assail him on his 
pilgrimage, the deities friendly and unfriendly, the tremendous 
scenes of cycles of transmigration. Other sculptures there are, 



THE FUNERAL RITUAL. 365 

to be sure, and in some tombs these latter predominate, in 
which astronomy, agriculture, and domestic life are depicted. 
In one chamber are exhibited trades, in another the kitchen, in. 
another arms, in another the gay boats and navigation of the 
Nile, in another all the vanities of elegant house-furniture. 
But all these only emphasize the fact that we are passing into 
another world, and one of the grimmest realities. We come at 
length, whatever other wonders or beauties may detain us, to 
the king, the royal ■ mummy, in the presence of the deities, 
standing before Osiris, Athor, Phtah, Isis, Horus, Anubis, and 
Nofre-Atmoo. 

Somewhere in this vast and dark mausoleum the mummy has 
been deposited ; he has with him the roll of the Funeral 
Ritual ; the sacred scarabseus is on his breast ; in one cham- 
ber bread and wine are set out ; his bearers withdraw, the tomb 
is closed, sealed, all trace of its entrance effaced. The mummy 
begins his pilgrimage. 

The Ritual* describes all the series of pilgrimages of the 
soul in the lower-world; it contains the hymns, prayers, and 
formula for all funeral ceremonies and the worship of the dead ; 
it embodies the philosophy and religion of Egypt ; the basis of 
it is the immortality of the soul, that is of the souls of the 
justified, but a clear notion of the soul's personality apart from 
the body it does not give. 

The book opens w-ith a grand dialogue, at the moment of 
death, in which the deceased, invoking the god of the lower- 
world, asks entrance to his domain; a chorus of glorified souls 
interposes for him; the priest implores the divine clemency; 
Osiris responds, granting permission, and the soul enters Kar- 
Neter, the land of the dead ; and then renews his invocations. 
Upon his entry he is dazzled by the splendor of the sun (which 
is Osiris) in this subterranean region, and sings to it a magnifi- 
cent hymn. 

The second part traces the journeys of the soul. Without 
knowledge, he would fail, and finally be rejected at the tribunaL 



♦Lenormant's Epitome. 



366 BEFORE THE JUDGMENT-SEAT. 

Knowledge is in Egyptian sbo^ that is, "food in plenty "; know- 
ledge and food are identified in the Ritual ; " the knowledge of 
religious truths is the mysterious nourishment that the soul 
must carry with it to sustain it in its journeys and trials," This 
necessary preliminary knowledge is found in the statement of 
the Egyptian faith in the Ritual; other information is given 
him from time to time on his journey. But although his body 
is wrapped up, and his soul instructed, he cannot move, he has 
not the use of his limbs; and he prays to be restored to his 
faculties that he may be able to walk, speak, eat, fight; the 
prayer granted, he holds his scarabseus over his head, as a 
passport, and enters Hades. 

His way is at once beset by formidable obstacles; monsters, 
servants of Typhon, assail him ; slimy reptiles, crocodiles, 
serpents seek to devour him ; he begins a series of desperate 
combats, in which the hero and his enemies hurl long and 
insulting speeches at each other. Out of these combats he 
comes victorious, and sings songs of triumph ; and after rest and 
refreshment from the Tree of Life, given him by the goddess Nu, 
he begins a dialogue with the personification of the divine 
Light, who instructs him, explaining the sublime mysteries of 
nature. Guided by this new Light, he advances, and enters 
into a series of transformations, identifying himself with the 
noblest divine symbols : he becomes a hawk, an angel, a lotus, 
the god Ptah, a heron, etc. 

Up to this time the deceased has been only a shade, an 
eidolon, the simulacrum of the appearance of his body. He now 
takes his body, which is needed for the rest of the journey ; it 
was necessary therefore that it should be perfectly preserved by 
the embalming process. He goes on to new trials and dangers, 
to new knowledge, to severer examinations of his competence ; 
he shuns wiles and delusions ; he sails down a subterranean 
river and comes to the Elysian Fields, in fact, to a reproduction 
of Egypt with its camels and its industries, when the soul 
engages in agriculture, sowing and reaping divine fruit for the 
bread of knowledge which he needs now more than ever. 

At length he comes to the last and severest trial, to the 



WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE. 367 

judgment-hall where Osiris awaits him, seated on his throne, 
accompanied by the forty-two assessors of the dead. Here his 
knowledge is put to the test; here he must give an account of 
his whole life. He goes on to justify himself by declaring at 
first, negatively, the crimes that he has not committed. " I have 
not blasphemed," he says in the Ritual ; " I have not stolen ; I 
have not smitten men privily ; I have not treated any person 
with cruelty ; I have not stirred up trouble ; I have not been 
idle ; I have not been intoxicated ; I have not made unjust 
commandmants ; I have shown no improper curiosity ; I have 
not allowed my mouth to tell secrets ; I have not wounded any- 
one ; I have not put anyone in fear ; I have not slandered any- 
one ; I have not let envy gnaw my heart ; I have spoken evil 
neither of the king nor of my father; I have not falsely accused 
anyone; I have not withheld milk from the mouths of sucklings; 
I have not practiced any shameful crime ; I have not calumni- 
ated a slave to his master." 

The deceased then speaks of the good he has done in his 
lifetime; and the positive declarations rise to a higher morality 
than the negative ; among them is this wonderful sentence : — 
" / have given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, and clothes 
to the naked y 

The heart of the deceased, who is now called Osiris, is then 
weighed in the balance against "truth," and (if he is just) is 
not found wanting; the forty-two assessors decide that his 
knowledge is sufficient, the god Osiris gives sentence of 
justification, Thoth (the Hermes of the Greeks, the conductor 
of souls, the scribe of Osiris, and also the personification of 
literature or letters) records it, and the soul enters into bliss. 

In a chamber at Dayr el Medeeneh you may see this 
judgment-scene. Osiris is seated on his throne waiting the 
introduction of souls into Amenti; the child Harpocrates, 
with his finger on his lip, sits upon his crook ; behind are the 
forty-two assessors. The deceased humbly approaches ; Thoth 
presents his good deeds written upon papyrus ; they are 
weighed in the balance against an ostrich-feather, the symbol 
of truth ; on the beam sits a monkey, the emblem of Thoth. 



368 THE HABITA TION OF THE DEAD. 

The same conceit of weighing the soul in judgment-scenes 
was common to the mediaeval church; it is very quaintly- 
represented in a fresco in the porch of the church of St. 
Lawrence at Rome. 

Sometimes the balance tipped the wrong way ; in the tomb 
of Rameses VI. is sculptured a wicked soul, unjustified, 
retiring from the presence of Osiris in the ignoble form of a 

pig- 

The justified soul retired into bliss. What was this bliss.'* 
The third part of the Ritual is obscure. The deceased is 
Osiris, identified with the sun, traversing with him, and as 
him, the various houses of heaven ; afterwards he seems to 
pass into an identification with all the deities of the pantheon. 
This is a poetical flight. The justified soul was absorbed 
into the intelligence from which it emanated. For the 
wicked, there was annihilation ; they were destroyed, decapi- 
tated by the evil powers. In these tombs you will see 
pictures of beheadings at the block, of dismembered bodies. 
It would seem that in some cases the souls of the wicked 
returned to the earth and entered unclean animals. We 
always had a suspicion, a mere idle fancy, that the chameleon, 
which we had on our boat, which had a knowing and wicked 
eye, had been somebody. 

The visitor's first astonishment here is to find such vast and 
rich tombs, underground temples in fact, in a region so 
unutterably desolate, remote from men, to be reached only by 
a painful pilgrimage. He is bewildered by the variety and 
beauty of the decorations, the grace and freedom of art, the 
minute finish of birds and flowers, the immortal loveliness 
of faces here and there; and he cannot understand that all 
this was not made for exhibition, that it was never intended 
to be seen, that it was not seen except by the workmen and 
the funeral attendants, and that it was then sealed away from 
human eyes forever. Think of the years of labor expended, 
the treasure lavished in all this gorgeous creation, which was 
not for men to see ! Has human nature changed } Expensive 
monuments and mausoleums are built now as they have been 



ILL UMINA TED, 369 



in all the Christian era; but they are never concealed from 
the public view. I cannot account for these extraordinary- 
excavations, not even for one at the Assaseef, which extends 
over an acre and a quarter of ground, upon an ostentation of 
wealth, for they were all closed from inspection, and the very 
entrances masked. The builders must have believed in the 
mysteries of the under-world, or they would not have expen- 
ded so much in enduring representations of them ; they must 
have believed also that the soul had need of such a royal 
abode. Did they have the thought that money lavished in 
this pious labor would benefit the soul, as much as now-a- 
days legacies bequeathed to missions and charities .? 

On our second visit to these tombs we noticed many details 
that had escaped us before. I found sculptured a cross of 
equal arms, three or four inches long, among other sacred 
symbols. We were struck by the peculiar whiteness of the 
light, the sort of chalkiness of the sunshine as we saw it 
falling across the entrance of a tomb from which we were 
coming, and by the lightness of the shadows. We illumin- 
ated some of the interiors, lighting up the vast sculptured 
and painted halls and corniced chambers, to get the tout 
ensemble of colors and figures. The colors came out with 
startling yividness on the stuccoed, white walls, and it needed 
no imagination, amidst these awful and bizarre images and 
fantastic scenes, to feel that we were in a real under-world. 
And all this was created for darkness! 

But these chambers could neither have been cut nor deco- 
rated without light, and bright light. The effect of the rich 
ceiling and sides could not have been obtained without strong 
light. I believe that these rooms, as well as the dark and 
decorated chambers in the temples, must have been brilliantly 
illuminated on occasion; the one at the imposing funeral 
ceremonies, the other at the temple services. What light was 
used.' The sculptures give us no information. But the light 
must have been not only a very brilliant but a pure flame, 
for these colors were fresh and unsullied when the tombs 
were opened. However these chambers were lighted, some 
24 



370 ACCOMMODATIONS FOR THE MVMMY. 

illuminating substance was used that produced no smoke, nor 
formed any gas that could soil the whiteness of the painted 
lotus. 

In one of these brilliant apartments, which is finished with 
a carved and painted cornice, and would serve for a drawing- 
room with the addition of some furniture, we almost had a 
feeling of comfort and domesticity — as long as the illumina- 
tion lasted. When that flashed out, and we were left in that 
thick darkness of the grave which one can feel gathering 
itself in folds about him, and which the twinkling candles in 
our hands punctured but did not scatter, and we groped our 
way, able to see only a step ahead and to examine only a yard 
square of wall at a time, there was something terrible in this 
subterranean seclusion. And yet, this tomb was intended as 
the place of abode of the deceased owner during the long 
ages before soul and body, united, should be received into 
bliss; here were buried with him no doubt some portions of 
his property, at least jewels and personal ornaments of value; 
here were pictured his possessions and his occupations while 
on earth; here were his gods, visibly cut in stone; here were 
spread out, in various symbols and condensed writing, the 
precepts of profound wisdom and the liturgies of the book 
of the dead. If at any time he could have awakened (as 
no doubt he supposed he should), and got rid of his heavy 
granite sarcophagus (if his body ever lay in it) and removed 
the myrrh and pitch from his person, he would have found 
himself in a most spacious and gay mansion, of which the 
only needs were food, light, and air. 

While remembering, however, the grotesque conception 
the Egyptians had of the next world, it seems to me that the 
decorators of these tombs often let their imaginations run 
riot, and that not every fantastic device has a deep signifi- 
cation. Take the elongated figures on the ceiling, stretching 
fifty feet across, the legs bent down one side and the head the 
other; or such a picture as this: — a sacred boat having a 
crocodile on the deck, on the back of the crocodile a human 
head, out of the head a long stick protruding which bears on 



THE PHARAOH OF THE EXODUS. 371 

its end the crown of lower Egypt; or this conceit: — a small 
boat ascending a cataract, bearing a huge beetle (scarabaeus) 
having a ram's head, and sitting on each side of it a bird with 
a human head. I think much of this work is pure fancy. 

In these tombs the snake plays a great part, the snake 
purely, coiled or extended, carried in processions his length 
borne on the shoulders of scores of priests, crawling along 
the walls in hideous convolutions ; and, again, the snake with 
two, three, and four heads, with two and six feet ; the snake 
with wings ; the snake coiled about the statues of the gods, 
about the images of the mummies, and in short everywhere. 
The snake is the most conspicuous figure. 

The monkey is also numerous, and always pleasing; I 
think he is the comic element of hell, though perhaps gravely 
meant. He squats about the lower-world of the heathen, and 
gives it an almost cheerful and debonnair aspect. It is certainly 
refreshing to meet his self-possessed, grave, and yet friendly 
face amid all the serpents, crocodiles, hybrids, and chimerical 
monsters of the Egyptian under- world. 

Conspicuous in ceremonies represented in the tombs and in 
the temples is the sacred boat or ark., reminding one always, 
in its form and use and the sacredness attached to it, of the 
Jewish Ark of the Covenant. The arks contain the sacred 
emblems, and sometimes the beetle of the sun, overshadowed 
by the wings of the goddess of Thmei or Truth, which suggest 
the cherubim of the Jews. Mr. Wilkinson notices the fact, 
also, that Thmei, the name of the goddess who was worship- 
ped under the double character of Truth and Justice, is the 
origin of the Hebrew Thummim — a word implying "truth"; 
this Thummim (a symbol perfectly comprehensible now that 
we know its origin) which was worn only by the high priest 
of the Jews, was, like the Egyptian figure, which the arch- 
judge put on when he sat at the trial of a case, studded with 
precious stones of various colors. 

Before we left the valley we entered the tomb of Menephtah 
(or Merenphtah), and I broke off a bit of crumbling limestone 
from the inner cave as a memento of the Pharaoh of the 



372 ^ BABY CHARON. 



Exodus. I used to suppose that this Pharaoh was drowned 
in the Red Sea; but he could not have been if he was buried 
here; and here certainly is his tomb. It is the opinion of 
scholars that Menephtah long survived the Exodus. There 
is nothing to conflict with this in the Biblical description 
of the disaster to the Egyptians. It says that all Pharaoh's 
host was drowned, but it does not say that the king was 
drowned ; if he had been, so important a fact, it is likely,would 
have been emphasized. Joseph came into Egypt during 
the reign of one of the usurping Shepherd Kings, Apepi 
probably. Their seat of empire was at Tanis, where their 
tombs have been discovered. The Israelites were settled in 
that part of the Delta. After some generations the Shepherds 
were expelled, and the ancient Egyptian race of kings was 
reinstated in the dominion of all Egypt. This is probably 
the meaning of the passage, " now there arose up a new king 
over Egypt, which knew not Joseph." The narrative of the 
Exodus seems to require that the Pharaoh should be at 
Memphis. The kings of the nineteenth dynasty, to which 
Menephtah belonged, had the seat of their empire at Thebes; 
he alone of that dynasty established his court at Memphis. 
But it was natural that he should build his tomb at Thebes. 
We went again and again to the temples on the west side 
and to the tombs there. I never wearied of the fresh morning 
ride across the green plain, saluting the battered Colossi as 
we passed under them, and galloping (don't, please, remember 
that we were mounted on donkeys) out upon the desert. Not 
all the crowd of loping Arabs with glittering eyes and lying 
tongues, who attended us, offering their dead merchandise, 
could put me out of humor. Besides, there were always 
slender, pretty, and cheerful little girls running beside us with 
their water-koollehs. And may I never forget the baby Cha- 
ron on the vile ferry-boat that sets us over one of the narrow 
streams. He is the cunningest specimen of a boy in Africa. 
His small brothers pole the boat, but he is steersman, and 
stands aft pushing about the tiller, which is level with his 
head. He is a mere baby as to stature, and is in fact only 



BATS! 3Y3 

four years old, but he is a perfect beauty, even to the ivory 
teeth which his engaging smile discloses. And such self- 
possession and self-respect. He is a man of business, and 
minds his helm, "the dear little scrap," say the ladies. When 
we give him some evidently unexpected coppers, his eyes and 
whole face beam with pleasure, and in the sweetest voice he 
says, Ket'tJier khdyrak, keteer ("Thank you very much indeed "). 

I yield myself to, but cannot account for the fascination of 
this vast field of desolation, this waste of crumbled limestone, 
gouged into ravines and hills, honeycombed with tombs and 
mummy-pits, strewn with the bones of ancient temples, bright- 
ened by the glow of sunshine on elegant colonnades and 
sculptured walls, saddened by the mud-hovels of the fellaheen. 
The dust is abundant, and the glare of the sun reflected from 
the high, white precipices behind is something unendurable. 

Of the tombs of the Assaseef, we went far into none, except 
that of the priest Petamunoph, the one which occupies, with 
its many chambers and passages, an acre and a quarter of 
underground. It was beautifully carved and painted through- 
out, but the inscriptions are mostly illegible now, and so 
fouled by bats as to be uninteresting. Our guide said truly, 
*'bats not too much good for 'scriptions." In truth, the place 
smells horribly of bats, — an odor that will come back to you 
with sickening freshness days after, — and a strong stomach is 
required for the exploration. 

Even the chambers of some of the temples here were used in 
later times as receptacles for mummies. The novel and most inter- 
esting temple of Dayr el Bahree did not escape this indignity. 
It was built by Amun-noo-het, or Hatasoo as we more familiarly 
call her, and like everything else that this spirited woman did it 
bears the stamp of originality and genius. The structure rises 
up the side of the mountain in terraces, temple above temple, 
and is of a most graceful architecture ; its varied and brilliant 
sculptures must be referred to a good period of art. Walls that 
have recently been laid bare shine with extraordinary vividness 
of color. The last chambers in the rock are entered by arched 
doorways, but the arch is in appearance, not in principle. Its 



37-± UNPLEASANT EXP LOR A TIONS. 

structure is peculiar. Square stones were laid up on each side,, 
the one above lapping over the one beneath until the last two 
met at the top; the interior corners were then cut away, leaving 
a perfect round arch ; but there is no lateral support or keystone. 
In these interior rooms were depths on depths of mummy- 
wrappings and bones, and a sickening odor of dissolution. 

There are no tombs better known than those of Sheykh el 
Koorneh, for it is in them that so much was discovered reveal- 
ing the private life, the trades, the varied pursuits of the 
Egyptians. We entered those called the most interesting, but 
they are so smoked, and the paintings are so defaced, that we 
had small satisfaction in them. Some of them are full of 
mummy-cloths and skeletons, and smell of mortality to that 
degree that it needs all the wind of the desert to take the scent 
of death out of our nostrils. 

All this plain and its mounds and hills are dug over and pawed 
out for remnants of the dead, scarabaei, beads, images, trinkets 
sacred and profane. It is the custom of some travelers to 
descend into the horrible and common mummy-pits, treading 
about among the dead, and bring up in their arms the body of 
some man, or some woman, who may have been, for aught the 
traveler knows, not a respectable person. I confess to an uncon- 
trollable aversion tb all of them, however well preserved they are. 
The present generation here (I was daily beset by an Arab who 
wanted always to sell me an arm or a foot, from whose eager, glit- 
tering eyes I seemed to see a ghoul looking out,) lives by plun- 
dering the dead. A singular comment upon our age and upon 
the futile hope of security for the body after death, even in the 
strongest house of rock. 

Old Petamunoph, with whom be peace, builded better than he 
knew; he excavated avast hotel for bats. Perhaps he changed 
into bats himself in the course of his transmigrations, and in this 
state is only able to see dimly, as bats do, and to comprehend 
only partially, as an old Egyptian might,, our modern civilization. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

FAREWELL TO THEBES. 

SOCIAL life at Thebes, in the season, is subject to peculiar 
conditions. For one thing, you suspect a commercial 
element in it. Back of all the politeness of native consuls 
and resident effendis, you see spread out a collection of antiques, 
veritable belongings of the ancient Egyptians, the furniture of 
their tombs, the ornaments they wore when they began their 
last and most solemn journey, the very scarabaeus, cut on the back 
in the likeness of the mysterious eye of Osiris, which the 
mummy held over his head when he entered the ominously 
silent land of Kar-Neter, the intaglio seal which he always used 
for his signature, the " charms " that he wore at his guard-chain, 
the necklaces of his wife, the rings and bracelets of his daughter. 
These are very precious things, but you may have them — such 
is the softening influence of friendship — for a trifle of coined gold, 
a mere trifle, considering their value and the impossibility of 
replacing them. What are two, five, even ten pounds for a 
genuine bronze figure of Isis, for a sacred cat, for a bit of stone, 
wrought four thousand years ago by an artist into the likeness 
of the immortal beetle, carved exquisitely with the name of the 
Pharaoh of that epoch, a bit of stone that some Egyptian wore at 
his chain during his life and which was laid upon his breast when 
he was wrapped up for eternity ! Here in Thebes, where the 
most important personage is the mummy and the Egyptian past 
is the only real and marketable article, there comes to be an 
extraordinary value attached to these trinkets of mortality. But 
when the traveler gets away, out of this charmed circle of 

375 



376 SOCIAL FESTIVITIES. 

enthusiasm for antiquity, away from this fictitious market in sen- 
timent, among the cold people of the world who know not 
Joseph, and only half believe in Potiphar, and think the little 
blue images of Osiris ugly, and the mmumy-beads trash, and 
who never heard of the scarabaeus, when, I say, he comes with 
his load oi antiques into this air of scepticism, he finds that he has 
invested in a property no longer generally current, objects of 
vertu for which Egypt is actually the best market. And if he 
finds, as he may, that a good part of his purchases are only 
counterfeits of the antique, manufactured and doctored to give 
them an appearance of age, he experiences a sinking of the heart 
mingled with a lively admiration of the adroitness of the smooth 
and courtly Arabs of Luxor. 

Social life is r,lso peculiar in the absence of the sex that is 
thought to add a charm to it in other parts of the world. We 
receive visits 0,^ ceremony or of friendship from the chief citizens 
of the village, we entertain them at dinner, but they are never 
accompanied by their wives or daughters; we call at their houses 
and are feted in turn, but the light of the harem never appears. 
Dahabeehs of all nations are arriving and departing, there are 
always several moored before the town, some of them are certain 
to have lovely passengers, and the polite Arabs are not insensible 
to the charm of their society : there is much visiting constantly 
on the boats ; but when it is returned at the houses of the natives, 
at an evening entertainment, the only female society offered is 
that of the dancing-girls. 

Of course, when there is so much lingual difficulty in inter- 
course, the demonstrations of civility must be mainly overt, and 
in fact they are mostly illuminations and " fantasies." Almost 
every boat once in the course of its stay, and usually upon some 
natal day or in honor of some arrival, will be beautifully illumin- 
ated and display fireworks. No sight is prettier than a dahabeeh 
strung along its decks and along its masts and yards with many 
colored lanterns. The people of Luxor respond with illumina- 
tions in the houses, to which they add barbarous music and the 
kicking and posturing of the Ghawazees. In this consists the 
gaiety of the Luxor season. 



WE VISIT THE NA TIVE CONSUL. S7''l 

Perhaps we reached the high-water mark of this gaiety in an 
entertainment given us by Ali Moorad Effendi, the American 
consular agent, in return for a dinner on the dahabeeh. Ali is 
of good Bedawee blood ; and has relations at Karnak enough to 
fill an opera-house ; we esteemed him one of the most trustworthy 
Arabs in the country, and he takes great pains and pleasure in 
performing all the duties of his post, which are principally civil- 
ities to American travelers. The entertainment consisted of a 
dinner and a 'fantasia.' It was understood that it was to be a 
dinner in Arab style. 

We go at sunset when all the broad surface of the Nile is like 
an opal in the reflected light. The consul's house is near the 
bank of the river, and is built against the hill so that we climb 
two or three narrow stairways before we get to the top of it. 
The landing-places of the stairways are terraces overlooking the 
river; and the word terrace has such a grand air that it is 
impossible to describe this house without making it appear better 
than it is. The consul comes down to the bank to receive us; 
we scramble up its crumbling face. We ascend a stairway to 
the long consular reception-room, where we sit for half an hour, 
during which coffee is served and we get the last of the glowing 
sunset from the windows. 

We are then taken across a little terrace, up another flight of 
steps, to the main house, which is seen to consist of a broad hall 
with small rooms on each side. No other members of the 
consul's family appear, and, regarding Arab etiquette, we make 
no inquiry for them. We could not commit a greater breach 
of good-breeding than to ask after the health of any members 
of the harem. Into one of the little rooms we are shown 
for dinner. It is very small, only large enough to contain a 
divan and a round table capable of seating eight persons. The 
only ornaments of the room are an American flag, and a hand- 
mirror hung too high for anyone to see herself in it. The round 
table is of metal, hammered out and turned at the edge, — a 
little barrier that prevents anything rolling off". At each place 
are a napkin and a piece of bread — no plate or knives or forks. 

Deference is so far paid to European prejudice that we sit in 



378 FINGER-FEEPING : AN ORIENTAL DINNER. 

chairs, but I confess that when I am to eat with my fingers I 
prefer to sit on the ground — the position in a chair is too formal 
for what is to follow. When we are seated, a servant brings 
water in a basin and ewer, and a towel, and we wash our right 
hands — the left hand is not to be used. Soup is first served. 
The dish is placed in the middle of the table, and we are given 
spoons with which each one dips in, and eats rapidly or slowly 
according to habit ; but there is necessarily some deliberation 
about it, for we cannot all dip at once. The soup is excellent,, 
and we praise it, to the great delight of our host, who shows his 
handsome teeth and says tyeb ; all that we have hitherto said was 
tyeb, we now add kateer. More smiles ; and claret is brought in 
— another concession to foreign tastes. 

After the soup, we rely upon our fingers, under the instructions 
of Ali and an Arab guest. The dinner consists of many courses, 
each article served separately, but sometimes placed upon the 
table in three or four dishes for the convenience of the convive 
in reaching it. There are meats and vegetables of all sorts 
procurable, fish, beef, mutton, veal, chickens, turkeys, quails and 
other small birds, pease, beans, salad, and some compositions 
which defied such analysis as one could make with his thumb 
and finger. Our host prided himself upon having a Turkish 
artist in the kitchen, and the cooking was really good and tooth- 
some, even to the pastry and sweetmeats ; we did not accuse 
him of making the champagne. 

There is no difficulty in getting at the meats ; we tear off strips, 
mutually assisting each other in pulling them asunder ; but there 
is more trouble about such dishes as pease and a puree of some- 
thing. One hesitates to make a scoop of his four fingers, and 
plunge in; and then it is disappointing to an unskilled person 
to see how few peas he can convey to his mouth at a time. I 
sequester and keep by me the breast-bone of a chicken, which 
makes an excellent scoop for small vegetables and gravies, and 
I am doing very well with it, until there is a universal protest 
against the unfairness of the device. 

Our host praises everything himself in the utmost simplicity, 
and urges us to partake of each dish ; he is continually picking 



THE DANCE. 379 



out nice bits from the dish and conveying them to the mouth of 
his nearest guest. My friend who sits next to Ali, ought to be 
grateful for this delicate attention, but I fear he is not. The 
fact is that Ali, by some accident, in fishing, hunting, or war, has 
lost the tip of the index finger of his right hand, the very hand 
that conveys the delicacies to my friend's mouth. And he told 
me afterwards, that he felt each time he was fed that he had 
swallowed that piece of the consul's finger. 

During the feast there is music by performers in the adjoining 
hall, music in minor, barbaric strains insisted on with the monot- 
onous nonchalance of the Orient, and calculated, I should say^ 
to excite a person to ferocity, and to make feeding with his 
fingers a vent to his aroused and savage passions. At the end 
of the courses water is brought for us to lave our hands, and 
coffee and chibooks are served. 

"Dinner very nice, very fine," says Ali, speaking the common 
thought which most hosts are too conventional to utter. 

" A splendid dinner, O ! consul ; I have never seen such an 
one in America." 

The Ghawazees have meantime arrived ; we hear a burst of 
singing occasionally with the wail of the instruments. The 
dancing is to be in the narrow hall of the house, which is 
lighted as well as a room can be with so many dusky faces in it. 
At the far end are seated on the floor the musicians, with 
two stringed instruments, a tambourine and a darabooka. That 
which answers for a violin has two strings of horsehair, stretched 
over a cocoanut-shell ; the bowstring, which is tightened by the 
hand as it is drawn, is of horsehair. The music is certainly 
exciting, harassing, plaintive, complaining ; the very monot- 
ony of it would drive one wild in time. Behind the musicians 
is a dark cloud of turbaned servants and various privileged 
retainers of the house. In front of the musicians sit the Ghawa- 
zees, six girls, and an old women with parchment skin and 
twinkling eyes, who has been a famous dancer in her day. They 
are waiting a little wearily, and from time to time one of them 
throws out the note or two of a song, as if the music were 
beginning to work in her veins. The spectators are grouped at 



380 'FANTASIA' OF THE GHAWAZEES. 

the entrance of the hall and seated on chairs down each side, 
leaving but a narrow space for the dancers between ; and there 
are dusky faces peering in at the door. 

Before the dance begins we have an opportunity to see what 
these Ghawazees are like, a race which prides itself upon 
preserving a pure blood for thousands of years, and upon an 
ancestry that has always followed the most disreputable pro- 
fession. These girls are aged say from sixteen to twenty; one 
appears much older and looks exactly like an Indian squaw, 
but, strange to say, her profile is also exactly that of Rameses as 
we see it in the sculptures. The leading dancer is dressed in a 
flaring gown of red and figured silk, a costly Syrian dress ; she is 
fat, rather comely, but coarsely uninteresting, although she is said 
to have on more jewelry than any other dancing-girl in Egypt; 
her abundant black hair is worn long and in strands thickly hung 
with gold coins; her breast is covered with necklaces of gold- 
work and coins ; and a mass of heavy twinkling silver ornaments 
hangs about her waist. A third dancer is in an almost equally 
striking gown of yellow, and wears also much coin ; she is a Pha- 
raonic beauty, with a soft skin and the real Oriental eye and pro- 
file. The dresses of all are plainly cut, and straight-waisted, like 
an ordinary calico gown of a milkmaid. They wear no shawls 
or any other Oriental wrappings, and dance in their stocking-feet. 

At a turn in the music, the girl in red and the girl in yellow 
stand up ; for an instant they raise their castanets till the time 
of the music is caught, and then start forward, with less of 
languor and a more skipping movement than we expected ; and 
they are not ungraceful as they come rapidly down the hall, 
throwing the arms aloft and the feet forward, to the rattle of 
the castanets. These latter are small convex pieces of brass, 
held between the thumb and finger, which have a click like the 
rattle of the snake. In mid-advance they stop, face each other, 
chassee, retire, and again come further forward, stop, and the 
peculiar portion of the dance begins, which is not dancing at all, 
but a quivering, undulating motion given to the body, as the 
girl stands with feet planted wide apart. The feet are still, the 
head scarcely stirs, except with an almost imperceptible snake- 
like movement, but the muscles of the body to the hips quiver 



THE ''ANCIENT STYLE" OF DANCING. 381 

in time to the monotonous music, in muscular thrills, in waves 
running down, and ajt intervals extending below the waist. 
Sometimes one side of the body quivers while the other is 
perfectly still, and then the whole frame, for a second, shares in 
the ague. It is certainly an astonishing muscular performance, 
but you could not call it either graceful or pleasing. Some 
people see in the intention of the dance a deep symbolic 
meaning, something about the Old Serpent of the Nile, with its 
gliding, quivering movement and its fatal fascination. Others 
see in it only the common old Snake that was in Eden. I 
suppose in fact that it is the old and universal Oriental dance, 
the chief attraction of which never was its modesty. 

After standing for a brief space, with the body throbbing and 
quivering, the castanets all the time held above the head in 
sympathetic throbs, the dancers start forward, face each other, 
pass, pirouette, and take some dancing steps, retire, advance and 
repeat the earthquake performance. This is kept up a long 
time, and with wonderful endurance, without change of figure ; 
but sometimes the movements are more rapid, when the music 
hastens, and more passion is shown. But five minutes of it is as 
good as an hour. Evidently the dance is nothing except with a 
master, with an actress who shall abandon herself to the tide of 
feeling which the music suggests and throw herself into the full 
passion of it ; who knows how to tell a story by pantomime, and 
to depict the woes of love and despair. All this needs grace, 
beauty, and genius. Few dancing-girls have either. An old 
resident of Luxor complains that the dancing is not at all what 
it was twenty years ago, that the old fire and art seem to be lost. 

"The old hag, sitting there on the floor, was asked to exhibit 
the ancient style ; she consented, and danced marvelously for 
a time, but the performance became in the end too shameful to 
be witnessed." 

I fancy that if the dance has gained anything in propriety, 
which is hard to believe, it has lost in spirit. It might be 
passionate, dramatic, tragic. But it needs genius to make it 
anything more than a suggestive and repulsive vulgarity. 

During the intervals, the girls sing to the music ; the singing 



382 THE POETRY OF NIGHT. 

is very wild and barbaric. The song is in praise of the Night, a 
love-song consisting of repeated epithets^: — 

" the Night ! nothing is so lovely as the Night ! 
my heart ! my soul ! my liver ! 
My love he passed my door, and saw me not ; 
the night ! How lovely is the Night ! " 

The strain is minor, and there is a wail in the voices which 
stridently chant to the twanging strings. Is it only the echo of 
ages of sin in these despairing voices.? How melancholy it all 
becomes ! The girl in yellow, she of the oblong eyes, straight 
nose and high type of Oriental beauty, dances down alone; she 
is slender, she has the charm of grace, her eyes never wander to 
the spectators. Is there in her soul any faint contempt for herself 
or for the part she plays.? Or is the historic consciousness of 
the antiquity of both her profession and her sin strong enough 
to throw yet the lights of illusion over such a performance.? 
Evidently the fat girl in red is a prey to no such misgiving, as 
she comes bouncing down the line, and flings herself into her 
ague fit. 

" Look out, the hippopotamus ! " cries Abd-el-Atti, " I 'fraid 
she kick me." 

While the dance goes on, pipes, coffee, and brandy are 
frequently passed; the dancers swallow the brandy readily. 
The house is illuminated, and the entertainment ends with a 
few rockets from the terrace. This is a full-blown "fantasia." 

As the night is still young and the moon is full, we decide 
to efface, as much as may be, the vulgarities of modern Egypt, 
by a vision of the ancient, and, taking donkeys we ride to 
Karnak. 

For niyself I prefer day to night, and abounding sunshine 
to the most generous moonlight ; there is always some dis- 
appointment in the night effect in ruins, under the most 
favorable conditions. But I have great deference to that 
poetic yearning for half-light, which leads one to grope about 
in the heavy night-shadows of a stately temple ; there is no 
bird more worthy of respect than the round-eyed attendant 
of Pallas- Athene. 



KARNAK B V MOONLIGHT. 333 



And it cannot be denied that there is something mysterious 
and almost ghostly in our silent night ride. For once our 
attendants fall into the spirit of the adventure, keep silent 
and are only shades at our side. Not a word or a blow is 
heard as we emerge from the dark lanes of Luxor and come 
out into the yellow light of the plain ; the light seems strong 
and yet the plain is spectral, small objects become gigantic, 
and although the valley is flooded in radiance, the end of our 
small procession is lost in dimness. Nothing is real, all 
things take fantastic forms, and all proportions are changed. 
One moves as in a sort of spell, and it is this unreality which 
becomes painful. The old Egyptiaus had need of little imagin- 
ation to conjure up the phantasmagoria of the under-v^orld ; 
it is this without the sun. 

So far as we can see it, the great mass of stone is impressive 
as we approach— I suspect because we know how vast and 
solid it is; and the pylons never seemed so gigantic before. 
We do our best to get into a proper frame of mind, by 
wandering apart, and losing ourselves in the heavy shadows. 
And for moments we succeed. It would have been the shame 
of our lives not to have seen Karnak by moonlight. The 
Great Hall, with its enormous columns planted close together, 
it is more difficult to see by night than by day, but such 
glimpses as we have of it, the silver light slanting through 
the stone forest and the heavy shadows, are profoundly 
impressive. I climb upon a tottering pylon where I can see 
over the indistinct field and chaos of stone, and look down 
into the weird and half-illumined Hall of Columns. In this 
isolated situation I am beginning to fall into the classical 
meditation of Marius at Carthage, when another party of 
visitors arrives, and their donkeys, meeting our donkeys in 
the center of the Great Hall, begin (it is their donkeys that 
begin) such a braying as never was heard before; the chal- 
lenge is promptly responded to, and a duet ensues and is 
continued and runs into a chorus, so hideous, so unsanctified, 
SO wretchedly attuned, and out of harmony with history, 



384 SOMETHING TO BO AT LUXOR. 

romance, and religion, that sentiment takes wings with silence 
and flies from the spot. 

We can pick up again only some scattered fragments of 
emotion by wandering alone in the remotest nooks. But we 
can go nowhere that an Arab, silent and gowned, does not 
glide from behind a pillar or step out of the shade, staff in 
hand, and stealthily accompany us. Even the donkey-boys 
have cultivated their sensibilities by association with other 
nocturnal pilgrims, and encourage our gush of feeling by 
remarking in a low voice, "Karnak very good." One of 
them, who had apparently attended only the most refined and 
appreciative, keeps repeating at each point of view, " Exquis- 
ite ! " 

As I am lingering behind the company a shadow glides up 
to me in the gloom of the great columns, with "good eve- 
ning"; and, when I reply, it draws nearer, and, in confidential 
tones, whispers, as if it knew that the moonlight visit was 
different from that by day, "Backsheesh." 

There is never wanting something to do at Luxor, if all the 
excursions were made. There is always an exchange of 
courtesies between dahabeehs, calls are made and dinners 
given. In the matter of visits the naval etiquette prevails, 
and the last comer makes the first call. But if you do not 
care for the society of travelers, you can at least make one of 
the picturesque idlers on the bank ; you may chance to see a 
display of Arab horsemanship ; you may be entertained by 
some new device of the curiosity-mongers; and there always 
remain the "collections" of the dealers to examine. One of 
the best of them is that of the German consul, who rejoices 
in the odd name of Todrous Paulos, which reappears in his 
son as Moharb Todrous ; a Copt who enjoys the reputation 
among Moslems of a trustworthy man — which probably means 
that a larger proportion of his antiquities are genuine than of 
theirs. If one were disposed to moralize there is abundant 
field for it here in Luxor. I wonder if there is an insatiable 
demoralization connected with the dealing in antiquities, and 
especially in the relics of the departed. When a person, as a 



HONORED BY THE SULTAN. 385 

business, obtains his merchandise from the unresisting clutch 
of the dead, in violation of the firman of his ruler, does he 
add to his wickedness by manufacturing imitations and selling 
thjem as real ? And what of the traveler who encourages 
both trades by buying? 

One night the venerable Mustapha Aga gave a grand 
entertainment, in honor of his reception of r. firman from the 
Sultan, who sent him a decoration of diamonds set in silver. 
Nothing in a Moslem's eyes could exceed the honor of this 
recognition by the Khalif, the successor of the Prophet. It 
was an occasion of religious as well as of social demonstration 
of gratitude. There was service, with the reading of the 
Koran in the mosque, for the faithful only ; there was a 
slaughter of sheep with a distribution of the mutton among 
the poor ; and there was a fantasia at the residence of Musta- 
pha (the house built into the columns of the temple of Luxor), 
to which everybody was bidden. There had been an arrival 
of Cook's Excursionists by steamboat, and there must have 
been as many as two hundred foreigners at the entertainment 
in the course of the evening. 

The way before the house was arched with palms and hung 
with colored lanterns; bands of sailors from the dahabeehs 
sat in front, strumming the darabooka and chanting their 
wild refrains; crowds of Arabs squatted in the light of the 
illumination and filled the steps and the doorway. Within 
were feasting, music, and dancing, in Oriental abandon. In 
the hall, which was lined with spectators, was to be seen 
the stiff-legged sprawling-about and quivering of the Gha- 
wazees, to the barbarous tum-tum, thump-thump, of the 
musicians ; in each side-room also dancing was extemporized, 
until the house was pervaded with the monotonous vulgarity, 
which was more pronounced than at the house of Ali. 

In the midst of these strange festivities, the grave Mustapha 
received congratulations upon his newly conferred honor, 
with the air of a man who was responding to it in the finest 
Oriental style. Nothing grander than this entertainment 
could be conceived in Luxor. 
25 



386 BIDDING FARE WELL TO THEBES. 

Let us try to look at it also with Oriental eyes. How fatal 
it would be to it not to look at it with Oriental eyes, we can 
conceive by transferring the scene to New York. A citizen, 
from one of the oldest families, has received from the Presi- 
dent, let us suppose, the decoration of the Grand Order of 
Inspector of Consulates. In order to do honor to the occasion, 
he throws open his residence on Gramercy Park, procures a 
lot of sailors to sit oh his steps and sing nautical ditties, and 
drafts a score of girls from Centre-street to entertain his 
guests with a style of dancing which could not be worse if it 
had three thousand years of antiquity. 

I prefer not to regard this Luxor entertainment in such a 
light ; and although we hasten from it as soon as we can with 
civility, I am haunted for a long time afterwards by I know 
not what there was in it of fantastic and barbaric fascination. 

The last afternoon at Luxor we give to a long walk to 
Karnak and beyond, through the wheat and barley fields now 
vocal with the songs of birds. We do not, however, reach the 
conspicuous pillars of a temple on the desert far to the north- 
east ; but, returning, climb the wall of circuit and look our 
last upon these fascinating ruins. From this point the rela- 
tive vastness of the Great Hall is apparent. The view this 
afternoon is certainly one of the most beautiful in the world. 
You know already the elements of it. 

Late at night, after a parting dinner of ceremony, and with 
a pang of regret, although we are in bed, the dahabeeh is 
loosed from Luxor and we quietly drop down below old 
Thebes. 




CHAPTER XXXI. 



LOITERING BY THE WAY. 



WE ARE at home again. Our little world, which has 
been somewhat disturbed by the gaiety of Thebes, 
and is already as weary of tombs as of temples and 
of the whole incubus of Egyptian civilization, readjusts itself 
and settles into its usual placid enjoyment. 

We have now two gazelles on boards and a most disagree- 
able lizard, nearly three feet long; I dislike the way his legs 
are set on his sides ; I dislike his tail, which is a fat continu- 
ation of his body; and the "feel" of his cold, creeping flesh 
is worse than his appearance; he is exceedingly active, 
darting rapidly about in every direction to the end of his 
rope. The gazelles chase each other about the deck, frolick- 
ing in the sun, and their eyes express as much tenderness 
' and affection as any eyes can, set like theirs. If they were 
mounted in a woman's head, and properly shaded with long 
lashes, she would be the most dangerous being in existence. 

Somehow there is a little change in the atmosphere of the 
dahabeeh. The jester of the crew, who kept them alternately 
laughing and grumbling, singing and quarreling, turbulent 
with hasheesh or sulky for want of it, was left in jail at 
Assouan. The reis has never recovered the injury to his 
dignity inflicted by his brief incarceration, and gives us no 
more a cheerful good-morning. The steersman smiles still, 
with the fixed look of enjoyment that his face assumed when 
it first came into the world, but he is listless; I think he has 
struck a section of the river in which there is a dearth of his 

387 



388 ''VERY GRAMMA TICK!" 

~ ~~~ ' ^ 

wives; he has complained that his feet were cold in the fresh 
mornings, but the stockings we gave him he does not wear, 
and probably is reserving for a dress occasion. Abd-el-Atti 
meditates seriously upon a misunderstanding with one of his 
old friends at Luxor ; he likes to tell us about the diplomatic 
and sarcastic letter he addressed him on leaving; "I wrote 
it," he says, "very grammatick, the meaning of him very 
deep; I think he feel it." There is no language like the 
Arabic for the delivery of courtly sarcasm, in soft words, at 
which no offence can be taken, — for administering a smart slap 
in the face, so to say, with a feather. 

It is a ravishing sort of day, a slight haze, warm but life- 
giving air, and we row a little and sail a little down the 
broadening river, by the palms, and the wheat-fields growing 
yellow, and the soft chain of Libyan hills, — the very dolce far 
7iiente of life. Other' dahabeehs accompany us, and we hear 
the choruses of their crews responding to ours. From the 
shore comes the hum of labor and of idleness, men at the 
shadoofs, women at the shore for water; there are flocks of 
white herons and spoonbills on the sandbars ; we glide past 
villages with picturesque pigeon-houses; a ferry-boat ever 
and anon puts across, a low black scow, its sides banked up 
with clay, a sail all patches and tatters, and crowded in it 
three or four donkeys and a group of shawled women and 
turbaned men, silent and sombre. The country through 
which we walk, towards night, is a vast plain of wheat, 
irrigated by canals, with villages in all directions ; the peas- 
ants are shabbily dressed, as if taxes ate up all their labor, 
but they do not beg. 

The city of Keneh, to which we come next morning, is the 
nearest point of the Nile to the Red Sea, the desert route to 
Kosseir being only one hundred and twenty miles; it is the 
Neapolis of which Herodotus speaks, near which was the 
great city of Chemmis, that had a temple dedicated to Per- 
seus. The Chemmitae declared that this demi-god often 
appeared to them on earth, and that he was descended from 
citizens of their country who had sailed into Greece; there is 



THE POTTERIES OF KEN EH. 389 

no doubt that Perseus came here when he made the expedi- 
tion into Libya to bring the Gorgon's head. 

Keneh is now a thriving city, full of evidences of wealth, 
and of well-dressed people, and there are handsome houses 
and bazaars like those of Cairo. From time immemorial it 
has been famous for its koollehs, which are made of a fine clay 
found only in this vicinity, of which ware is manufactured 
almost as thin as paper. The process of making them has 
not changed since the potters of the Pharaohs' time. The pot- 
ters of to-day are very skillful at the wheel. A small mass of 
moistened clay, mixed with sifted ashes of halfeh-grass and 
kneaded like bread, is placed upon a round plate of wood 
which whirls by a treadle. As it revolves the workman with 
his hands fashions the clay into vessels of all shapes, graceful 
and delicate, with a sleight of hand that is wonderful. He 
makes a koolleh, or a drinking-cup, or a vase with a slender 
neck, in a few seconds, fashioning it as truly as if it were cast 
in a mould. It was like magic to see the fragile forms grow 
in his hands. We sat for a long time in one of the cool rooms 
where two or three potters were at work, shaded from the 
sun by palm-branches, which let the light flicker upon the 
earth-floor, upon the freshly made vessels and the spinning 
wheels of the turbaned workmen, whose deft fingers wrought 
out unceasingly these beautiful shapes from the revolving 
clay. 

At the house of the English consul we have coffee ; he after- 
wards lunches with us and insists, but in vain, that we stay and 
be entertained by a Ghawazee dance in the evening. It is a 
kind of amusement of which a very little satisfies one. At his 
house. Prince Arthur and his suite were also calling ; a slender, 
pleasant appearing young gentleman, not noticeable anywhere 
and with a face of no special force, but bearing the family 
likeness. As we have had occasion to remark more than once. 
Princes are so plenty on the Nile this year as to be a burden to 
the officials, — especially German princes, who, however, do not 
count any more. The private, unostentatious traveler, who asks 
no favor of the Khedive, is becoming almost a rarity. I hear 



390 THE L YING-IN TEMPLE. 

the natives complain that almost all the Englishmen of rank 
who come to Egypt, beg, or shall we say accept ? substantial 
favors of the Khedive. The nobility appear to have a new 
rendering of noblesse oblige. This is rather humiliating to 
us Americans, who are, after all, almost blood-relations of the 
English ; and besides, we are often taken for 'Tnglese, in villages 
where few strangers go. It cannot be said that all Americans 
are modest, unassuming travelers ; but we are glad to record a 
point or two in their favor : — they pay their way, and they do not 
appear to cut and paint their names upon the ruins in such 
numbers as travelers from other countries ; the French are the 
greatest offenders in this respect, and the Germans next. 

We cross the river in the afternoon and ride to the temple of 
Athor or Venus at Denderah. This temple, although of late 
construction, is considered one of the most important in Egypt. 
But it is incomplete, smaller, and less satisfactory than that at' 
Edfoo. The architecture of the portico and succeeding hall is 
on the whole noble, but the columns are thick and ungraceful, 
and the sculptures are clumsy and unartistic. The myth of the 
Egyptian Venus is worked out everywhere with the elaboration 
of a later Greek temple. On the ceiling of several rooms her 
gigantic figure is bent round three sides, and from a globe in 
her lap rays proceed in the vivifying influence of which trees 
are made to grow. 

Everywhere in the temple are subterranean and intramural 
passages, entrance to which is only had by a narrow aperture, 
once closed by a stone. For what were these perfectly dark 
alleys intended ? Processions could not move in them, and if 
they were merely used for concealing valuables, why should their 
inner sides have been covered with such elaborate sculptures ? 

The most interesting thing at Denderah is the small temple of 
Osiris, which is called the "lying-in temple," the subjects of 
sculptures being the mystical conception, birth, and babyhood of 
Osiris. You might think from the pictures on the walls, of 
babes at nurse and babes in arms, that you had obtruded into 
one of the institutions of charity called a Day Nursery. We are 
glad to find here, carved in large, the image of the four-headed^ 



SHE YKH SALEEM'S ROOSTING-PLA CE. 391 

Ugly little creature we have been calling Typhon, the spirit of 
evil ; and to learn that it is not Typhon but is the god Bes, a 
jolly promoter of merriment and dancing. His appearance is 
very much against him. 

Mariette Bey makes the great mystery of the adytum of the 
large temple, which the king alone could enter, the golden 
sistrum which was kept there. The sistrimi was the mysterious 
emblem of Venus ; it is sculptured everywhere in this building 
— although it is one of the sacred symbols found in all temples. 
This sacred instrument /ar excellence of the Egyptians played as 
important a part in their worship, says Mr. Wilkinson, as the 
tinkling bell in Roman Catholic services. The great privilege 
of holding it was accorded to queens, and ladies of rank who 
were devoted to the service of the deity. The sistrum is a strip 
of gold, or bronze, bent in a long loop, and the ends, coming 
together, are fastened in an ornamented handle. Through the 
loop bars are run upon which are rings, and when the instrument 
is shaken the rings move to and fro. Upon the sides of the 
handle were sometimes carved the faces of Isis and of Nephthys, 
the sister goddesses, representing the beginning and the end. 

It is a little startling to find, when we get at the inner secret 
of the Egyptian religion, that it is a rattle ! But it is the symbol 
of eternal agitation, without which there is no life. And the 
Egyptians profoundly knew this great secret of the universe. 

We pass next day, quietly, to the exhibition of a religious 
devotion which is trying to get on without any sistrum or any 
agitation whatever. Towards sunset, below How, we come 
to a place where a holy man, called Sheykh Saleem, roosts 
forever on a sloping bank, with a rich country behind 
him; beyond, on the plain, hundreds of men and boys are at 
work throwing up an embankment against the next inundation ; 
but he does not heed them. The holy man is stark naked and 
sits upon his haunches, his head, a shock of yellow hair, upon his 
knees. He is of that sickly, whitey-black color which such holy 
skin as his gets by long exposure. Before him on the bank is a 
row of large water-jars; behind him is a little kennel of mud, 
into which he can crawl if it ever occurs to him to go to bed. 



392 TIMEL Y BREEZES. 



About him, seated on the ground, is a group of his admirers. 
Boys run after us along the bank begging backsheesh for Sheykh 
Saleem, A crowd of hangers-on, we are told, always surround 
him, and live on the charity that his piety evokes from the 
faithful. His own wants are few. He spend his life in this 
attitude principally, contemplating the sand between his knees. 
He has sat here for forty years. 

People pass and repass, camels swing by him, the sun shines, 
a breeze as of summer moves the wheat behind him, and our 
great barque, with its gay flags and a dozen rowers rowing in 
time, sweeps before him, but he does not raise his head. Perhaps 
he has found the secret of perfect happiness. But his example 
cannot be widely imitated. There are not many climates in the 
world in which a man can enjoy such a religion out of doors at 
all seasons of the year. 

We row on and by sundown are opposite Farshoot and its 
sugar-factories; the river broadens into a lake, shut in to the 
north by limestone hills rosy in this light, and it is perfectly still 
at this hour. But for the palms against the sky, and the cries of 
men at the shadoofs, and the clumsy native boats with their 
freight of immobile figures, this might be a glassy lake in the 
remote Adirondack forest, especially when the light has so much 
diminished that the mountains no longer appear naked. 

The next morning as we were loitering along, wishing for a 
breeze to take us quickly to Bellianeh, that we might spend the 
day in visiting old Abydus, a beautiful wind suddenly arose 
according to our desire. 

" You always have good fortune," says the dragoman. 

" I thought you didn't believe in luck .? " 

" Not to call him luck. You think the wind to blow 'thout 
the Lord know it 1 " 

We approach Bellianeh under such fine headway that we fall 
almost into the opposite murmuring, that this helpful breeze 
should come just when we were obliged to stop and lose the 
benefit. We half incline to go on, and leave Abydus in its ashes, 
but the absurdity of making a journey of seven thousand miles 
and then passing near to, but unseen, the spot most sacred to the 



SCARECROWS! 393 



old Egyptians, flashes upon us, and we meekly land. But our 
inclination to go on was not so absurd as it seems; the mind is 
so constituted that it can contain only a certain amount of old 
ruins, and we were getting a mental indigestion of them. Loath- 
ing is perhaps too strong a word to use in regard to a piece of 
sculpture, but I think that a sight at this time, of Rameses II. 
in his favorite attitude of slicing off the heads of a lot of small 
captives, would have made us sick. 

By eleven o'clock we were mounted for the ride of eight miles, 
and it may give some idea of the speed of the donkey under 
compulsion, to say that we made the distance in an hour and 
forty minutes. The sun was hot, the wind fresh, the dust 
considerable, — a fine sandy powder that, before night, penetra- 
ted clothes and skin. Nevertheless, the ride was charming. 
The way lay through a plain extending for many miles in every 
direction, every foot of it green with barley (of which here and 
there a spot was ripening), with clover, with the rank, dark 
Egyptian bean. The air was sweet, and filled with songs of 
the birds that glanced over the fields or poised in air on even 
wing like the lark. Through the vast, unfenced fields were 
narrow well-beaten roads in all directions, upon which men 
women, and children, usually poorly and scantily clad, donkeys 
and camels, were coming and going. There was the hum of 
voices everywhere, the occasional agonized blast of the donkey 
and the caravan bleat of the camel. It often seems to us that 
the more rich and broad the fields and the more abundant the 
life, the more squalor among the people. 

We had noticed, at little distances apart in the plain, mounds 
of dirt five or six feet high. Upon each of these stood a solitary 
figure, usually a naked boy — a bronze image set up above the 
green. 

" What are these ? " we ask. 

" What you call scarecrows, to frighten the birds ; see that chile 
throw dirt at 'em ! " 

"They look like sentries; do the people here steal?" 

"Everybody help himself, if nobody watch him." 

At length we reach the dust-swept village of Arabat, on the 



394 THE BURIAL-PLACE OF OSIRIS. 

edge of the desert, near the ruins of the ancient Thinis (or 
Abydus), the so-called cradle of the Egyptian monarchy. They 
have recently been excavated. I cannot think that this 
ancient and most important city was originally so far from the 
Nile ; in the day of its glory the river must have run near it. 
Here was the seat of the first Egyptian dynasty, five thousand 
and four years before Christ, according to the chronology of 
Mariette Bey. I find no difficulty in accepting the five thousand 
but I am puzzled about the four years. It makes Menes four 
years older than he is generally supposed to have been. It is 
the accuracy of the date that sets one pondering. Menes, the 
first-known Egyptian king, and the founder of Memphis, was 
born here. If he established his dynasty here six thousand 
eight hundred and seventy-nine years ago, he must have been 
born some time before that date; and to be a ruler he must have 
been of noble parents, and no doubt received a good education. 
I should like to know what sort of a place, as to art, say, and 
literature, and architecture, Thinis was seven thousand and four 
years ago. It is chiefly sand-heaps now. 

Not only was Menes born here, in the grey dawn of history, 
but Osiris, the manifestation of Light on earth, was buried here 
in the greyer dawn of a mythic period. His tomb was venerated 
by the Pharaonic worshippers as the Holy Sepulchre is by 
Christians, and for many ages. It was the last desire of the rich 
and noble Egyptians to be buried at Thinis, in order that they 
might lie in the same grave with Osiris; and bodies were brought 
here from all parts of Egypt to rest in the sacred earth. Their 
tombs were heaped up one above another, about the grave of the 
god. There are thousands of mounds here, clustering thickly 
about a larger mound ; and, by digging, M. Mariette hopes to 
find the reputed tomb of Osiris. An enclosure of crude brick 
marks the supposed site of this supposed most ancient city of 
Egypt. 

From these prehistoric ashes, it is like going from Rome to 
Peoria, to pass to a temple built so late as the time of Sethi I.^ 
only about thirty-three hundred years ago. It has been nearly 
all excavated and it is worth a long ride to see it. Its plan 



ASININE PERFORMANCES. 395 

differs from that of all other temples, and its varied sculpture 
ranks with the best of temple carving; nowhere else have we 
found more life and grace of action in the figures and more 
expressive features; in number of singular emblems and 
devices, and in their careful and beautiful cutting, and bril- 
liant coloring, the temple is unsurpassed. The non-stereo- 
typed plan of the temple beguiled us into a hearty enjoyment 
of it. Its numerous columns are pure Egyptian of the best 
style — lotus capitals ; and it contains some excellent specimens 
of the Doric column, or of its original, rather. The famous 
original tablet of kings, seventy-six, from Menes to Sethi, a 
partial copy of which is in the British Museum, has been 
re-covered with sand for its preservation. This must have 
been one of the finest of the old temples. We find here the 
novelty of vaulted roofs, formed by a singular method. The 
roof stones are not laid flat, as elsewhere, but on edge, and 
the roof, thus having sufficient thickness, is hollowed out on 
the under side, and the arch is decorated with stars and other 
devices. Of course, there is a temple of Rameses II., next 
door to this one, but it exists now only in its magnificent 
foundations. 

We rode back through the village of Arabat in a whirlwind 
of dust, amid cries of "backsheesh," hailed from every door 
and pursued by yelling children. One boy, clad in the loose 
gown that passes for a wardrobe in these parts, in order to 
earn his money, threw a summersault before us, and, in a 
flash, turned completely out of his clothes, like a new-made 
Adam ! Nothing was ever more neatly done; except it may 
have been a feat of my donkey a moment afterwards, executed 
perhaps in rivalry of the boy. Pretending to stumble, he 
went on his head, and threw a summersault also. When I 
went back to look for him, his head was doubled under his 
body so that he had to be helped up. 

When we returned we found six other dahabeehs moored 
near ours. Out of the seven, six carried the American flag — 
one of them in union with the German — and the seventh was 
English. The American flags largely outnumber all others. 



396 SPOILS OF THE ORIENT. 

on the Nile this year ; in fact Americans and various kinds of 
Princes appear to be monopolizing this stream. A German, 
who shares a boat with Americans, drops in for a talk. It is 
wonderful how much more space in the world every German 
needs, now that there is a Germany. Our visitor expresses 
the belief that the Germans and the Americans are to share 
the dominion of the world between them. I suppose that 
this means that we are to be permitted to dwell on our present 
possessions in peace, if we don't make faces; but one cannot 
contemplate the extinction of all the other powers without 
regret. 

Of course we have outstayed the south wind ; the next morn- 
ing we are slowly drifting against the north wind. As I look 
from the window before breakfast, a Nubian trader floats past, 
and on the bow deck is crouched a handsome young lion, 
honest of face and free of glance, little dreaming of the mis- 
erable menagerie life before him. There are two lions and a 
leopard, and a cargo of cinnamon, senna, elephants' tusks, and 
ostrich-feathers, on board ; all Central Africa seems to float 
beside us, and the coal-black crew do not lessen the barbaric 
impression. 

It is after dark when we reach Girgeh, and are guided to 
our moorage by the lights of other dahabeehs. All that we 
see of this decayed but once capital town, are four minarets, 
two of them surrounding picturesque ruins and some slender 
columns of a mosque, the remainder of the building having 
been washed into the river. As we land, a muezzin sings 
the evening call to prayer in a sweet, high tenor voice ; and 
it sounds like a welcome. 

Decayed, did we say of Girgeh ? What is not decayed, or 
decaying, or shifting, on this aggressive river.? How age 
laps back on age and one religion shufiles another out of 
sight. In the hazy morning we are passing Mensheeh, the 
site of an old town that once was not inferior to Memphis; 
and then we come to Ekhmeem — ancient Panopolis. You 
never heard of it ? A Roman visitor called it the oldest city 
of all Egypt; it was in fact founded by Ekhmeem, the son of 



"BEAUTIFUL ANTIQUITIES." 397 

Misraim, the offspring of Cush, the son of Ham. There you 
are, almost personally present at the Deluge. Below here are 
two Coptic convents, probably later than the time of the Emp- 
ress Helena. On the shore are walking some Coptic Christians, 
but they are in no way superior in appearance to other natives ; 
a woman, whom we hail, makes the sign of the cross, and then 
demands backsheesh. 

We had some curiosity to visit a town of such honorable 
foundation. We found in it fine mosques and elegant minarets, 
of a good Saracenic epoch. Upon the lofty stone top of one 
sat an eagle, who looked down upon us unscared ; the mosque 
was ruinous and the door closed, but through the windows we 
could see the gaily decorated ceiling; the whole was in the sort 
of decay that the traveler learns to think Moslemism itself. 

We made a pretence of searching for the remains of a temple 
of Pan, — though we probably care less for Pan than we do for 
Rameses. Making known our wants, several polite gentlemen 
in turbans, offered to show us the way — the gentlemen in these 
towns seem to have no other occupation than to sit on the 
ground and smoke the chibook — and we were attended by a 
procession, beyond the walls, to the cemetery. There, in a 
hollow, we saw a few large stones, some of them showing marks 
of cutting. This was the temple spoken of in the hand-book. 
Our hosts then insisted upon dragging us half a mile further 
through the dust of the cemetery mounds, in the glare of the 
sun, and showed us a stone half buried, with a few hieroglyphics 
on one end. Never were people so polite. A grave man here 
joined us, and proposed to show us some quei-is ante'eka ("beau- 
tiful antiquities ") ; and we followed this obliging person half 
over town; and finally, in the court of a private house, he 
pointed to the torso of a blue granite statue. All this was done 
out of pure hospitality ; the people could not have been more 
attentive if they had had something really worth seeing. The 
town has handsome, spacious coffee-houses and shops, and an 
appearance of Oriental luxury. 

One novelty the place offered, and that was in a drinklng- 
fountain. Under a canopy, in a wall-panel, in the street, was 



898 ^^ VISIT THE ''OLD MASTERS," 

inserted a copper nipple, which was worn, by constant use, as 
smooth as the toe of St. Peter at Rome. When one wishes to 
drink, he applies his mouth to this nipple and draws ; it requires 
some power of suction to raise the water, but it is good and cool 
when it comes. As Herodotus would remark, now I have done 
speaking about this nipple. 

We walked on interminably and at length obtained a native 
boat, with a fine assortment of fellahs and donkeys for passen- 
gers, to set us over to Soohag, the capital of the province, a busy 
and insupportably dirty town, with hordes of free-and-easy 
natives loafing about, and groups of them, squatting by little 
dabs of tobacco, or candy, or doora, or sugar-cane, making what 
they are pleased to call a market. 

It seemed to be a day for hauling us about. Two bright boys 
seized us, and urged us to go with them and see something 
marvelously beautiful. One of them was an erect, handsome 
lad, with courtly and even elegant dignity, a high and yet 
simple bearing, which I venture to say not a king's son in 
Europe is possessed of. They led us a chase, through half the 
sprawling town, by lanes and filthy streets, under bazaars, into 
the recesses of domestic poverty, among unknown and inquisitive 
natives, until we began to think that we should never see our 
native dahabeeh again. At last we were landed in a court 
where sat two men, adding up columns of figures. It was an 
Oriental picture, but scarcely worth coming so far to see. 

The men looked at us in wondering query, as if demanding 
what we wanted. 

We stood looking at them, but couldn't tell them what we 
wanted, since we did not know. And if we had known, we 
could not have told them. We only pointed to the boys who 
had brought us. The boys pointed to the ornamental portals of 
a closed door. 

After a long delay, and the most earnest posturing and pro- 
fessions of our young guides, and evident suspicion of us, a 
key was brought, and we were admitted into a cool and 
clean Coptic church, which had fresh matting and an odor 
of incense. Ostrich-eggs hung before the holy places, as in 



THE KHEDIVE'S ACCOUNT: PROFIT AND LOSS. 399 

mosques ; an old clock, with a long and richly inlaid dial-case, 
stood at one end; and there were paintings in the Byzantine 
style of "old masters." One of them represented the patron 
saint of the Copts, St. George, slaying the dragon ; the concep- 
tion does equal honor to the saint and the artist ; the wooden 
horse, upon which St. George is mounted, and its rider, fill 
nearly all the space of the canvas, leaving very little room for 
the landscape with its trees, for the dragon, for the maiden, and 
for her parents looking down upon her from the castle window. 
And this picture perfectly represents the present condition of 
art in the whole Orient. 

At Soohag a steamboat passed down towing four barges, 
packed with motley loads of boys and men, impressed to work 
in the Khedive's sugar-factory at Rhodes. They are seized, so 
many from a village, like the recruits for the army. They 
receive from two to two and a half piastres (ten to twelve and 
a half cents) a day wages, and a couple of pounds of bread each. 

I suspect the reason the Khedive's agricultural operations 
and his sugar-factories are unprofitable, is to be sought in the 
dishonest agents and middle-men — a kind of dishonesty that 
seems to be ingrained in the Eastern economy. The Khedive 
loses both ways: — that which he attempts to expend on a 
certain improvement is greatly diminished before it reaches its 
object; and the returns from the investment, on their way back 
to his highness, are rubbed away, passing through so many 
hands, to the vanishing point. It is the same with the taxes; 
the fellah pays four times as much as he ought, and the Khedive 
receives not the government due. The abuse is worse than it 
was in France with the farmers-general in the time of Louis 
XIV. and Louis XV. The tax apportioned to a province is 
required of its governor. He adds a lumping per cent, to the 
total, and divides the increased amount among his sub-governors 
for collection; they add a third to their levy and divide it 
among the tax-gatherers of sections of the district ; these again 
swell their quota before apportioning it among the sheykhs or 
actual collectors, and the latter take the very life-blood out of 
the fellah. 



400 HOPELESS ''FELLAHS! " 



As we sail down the river in this approaching harvest-season 
we are in continual wonder at the fertility of the land ; a 
fertility on the slightest cultivation, the shallowest plowing, and 
without fertilization. It is customary to say that the soil is 
inexhaustible, that crop after crop of the same kind can be 
depended on, and the mud [liinoti) of the overflowing Nile will 
repair all wastes. 

And yet, I somehow get an impression of degeneracy, of 
exhaustion, both in Upper and Lower Egypt, in the soil ; and it 
extends to men and to animals; horses, cattle, donkeys, camels, 
domestic fowls look impoverished — we have had occasion to say 
before that the hens lay ridiculously small eggs — they put the 
contents of one egg into three shells. (They might not take 
this trouble if eggs were sold by weight, as they should be.) 
The food of the country does not sufficiently nourish man or 
beast. Its quality is deficient. The Egyptian wheat does not 
make wholesome bread ; most of it has an unpleasant odor — it 
tends to speedy corruption, it lacks certain elements, phospho- 
rus probably. The bread that we eat on the dahabeeh is made 
from foreign wheat. The Egyptian wheat is at a large discount 
in European markets. One reason of this inferiority is supposed 
to be the succession of a wheat crop year after year upon the 
same field ; another is the absolute want of any fertilizer except 
the Nile mud ; and another the use of the same seed forever. 
Its virtue has departed from it, and the most hopeless thing in 
the situation is the unwillingness of the fellah to try anything 
new, in his contented ignorance. The Khedive has made 
extraordinary efforts to introduce impro-ved machinery and 
processes, and he has set the example on his own plantations. 
It has no effect on the fellah. He will have none of the new 
inventions or new ways. It seems as hopeless to attempt to 
change him as it would be to convert a pyramid into a Congre- 
gational meeting-house. 

For the political economist and the humanitarian, Egypt is 
the most interesting and the saddest study of this age; its 
agriculture and its people are alike unique. For the ordinary 
traveler the country has not less interest, and I suppose he may 



"ISN' T IT A BE A UTY? " 4-01 

be pardoned if he sometimes loses sight of the misery in the 
strangeness, the antique barbarity, the romance by which he isi 
surrounded. 

As we lay, windbound, a few miles below Soohag, the Nubian 
trading-boat I had seen the day before was moored near; and 
we improved this opportunity for an easy journey to Central 
Africa, by going on board. The forward-deck was piled with 
African hides so high that the oars were obliged to be hung on 
outriggers ; the cabin deck was loaded with bags of gums, 
spices, medicines ; and the cabin itself was stored so full, that 
"when we crawled down into it, there was scarcely room to sit 
upright on the bags. Into this penetralia of barbaric merchan- 
dise, the ladies preceded us, upon the promise of the sedate and 
shrewd-eyed traveler to exhibit his ostrich-feathers. I suppose 
nothing in the world of ornament is so fascinating to a woman 
as an ostrich-feather ; and to delve into a mine of them, to be 
able to toss about handfuls, sheafs of them, to choose any size 
and shape and any color, glossy black, white, grey, and white 
with black tips, — it makes one a little delirious to think of it ! 
There is even a mild enjoyment in seeing a lady take up a long, 
drooping plume, hold it up before her dancing, critical eyes, 
turning the head a little one side, shaking the feathered curve 
into its most graceful fall — "Isn't it a beauty.? " Is she think- 
ing how it will look upon a hat of the mode.? Not in the least. 
The ostrich-feather is the symbol of truth and justice; things 
that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other — it is 
also the symbol of woman. In the last Judgment before Osiris, 
the ostrich-feather is weighed in the balance against all the 
good deeds of a man's life. You have seen many a man put all 
his life against the pursuit of an ostrich-feather in a woman's 
hat — the plume of truth in beauty's bonnet. 

While the ostrich-trade is dragging along its graceful length, 
other curiosities are produced ; the short, dangerous tusks of 
the wild boar; the long tusks of the elephant — a beast whose 
enormous strength is only made a show of, like that of Samson ; 
and pretty silver-work from Soudan. 

" What is this beautiful tawny skin, upon which I am sitting ? ** 
26 



402 LIONS' OIL. 



" Lion's ; she was the mother of one of the young lions out 
yonder. And this," continued the trader, drawing something 
from the corner, "is her skull." It gave a tender interest to 
the orphan outside, to see these remains of his mother. But 
sadness is misplaced on her account ; it is better that she died, 
than to live to see her child in a menagerie. 

" What's that thick stuff in a bottle there behind you J " 

"That's lion's oil, some, of /ler oil." Unhappy family, the 
mother skinned and boiled, the offspring dragged into slavery, 

I took the bottle. To think that I held in my hand the oil of 
a lion ! Bear's oil is vulgar. But this is different ; one might 
anoint himself for any heroic deed with this royal ointment. 

" And is that another bottle of it ? " 

" Mais, no ; you don't get a lion every day for oil ; that is 
ostrich-oil. This is good for rheumatism." 

It ought to be. There is nothing rheumatic about the ostrich. 
When I have tasted sufficiently the barbaric joys of the cabin I 
climb out upon the deck to see more of this strange craft. 

Upon the narrow and dirty bow, over a slow fire, on a shallow 
copper dish, a dark and slender boy is cooking flap-jacks as big 
as the flap of a leathern apron. He takes the flap-jack up by 
the edge in his fingers and turns it over, when one side is 
cooked, as easily as if it were a sheepskin. There is a pile of 
them beside him, enough to make a whole suit of clothes, 
burnous and all, and very durable it would prove. Near him 
is tied, by a cotton cord, a half-grown leopard, elegantly 
spotted, who has a habit of running out his tongue, giving a 
side-lick of his chops, and looking at you in the most friendly- 
manner. If I were the boy I wouldn't stand with my naked 
back to a leopard which is tied with a slight string. 

On shore, on the sand and in the edge of the wheat, are 
playing in the sun a couple of handsome young lions, gentle 
as kittens. After watching their antics for some time, and 
calculating the weight of their paws as they cuff each other, I 
satisfy a long ungratifiied Van Amburg ambition, by patting 
the youngest on the head and putting my hand (for an 
exceedingly brief instant) into his mouth, experiencing a 



AGAINST THE WIND. 403 

certain fearful pleasure, remembering that although young he 
is a lion ! 

The two play together very prettily, and when I leave them 
they have lain down to sleep, face to face, with their arms 
round each other's necks, like the babes in the wood. The 
lovely leopard occasionally rises to his feet and looks at them, 
and then lies down again, giving a soft sweep to his long and 
rather vicious tail. His countenance is devoid of the nobility 
of the lion's. The lion's face inspires you with confidence; 
but I can see little to trust in the yellow depths of his eyes. 
The lion's eyes, like those of all untamed beasts, have the 
repulsive trait of looking at you without any recognition in 
them — the dull glare of animality. 

The next morning, when the wind falls, we slip out from 
our cover, like the baffled mariners of Jason, and row past the 
bold, purplish-grey cliflf of Gebel Sheykh Hereedee, in which 
are grottoes and a tomb of the sixth dynasty, and on to Tahta, 
a large town, almost as picturesque, in the distance, with its 
tall minarets and one great, red-colored building, as Venice 
from the Lido. Then the wind rises, and we are again tanta- 
lized with no progress. One likes to dally and eat the lotus 
by his own will ; but when the elements baffle him, and the 
wind blows contrary to his desires, the old impatience, the 
free will of ancient Adam, arises, and man falls out of his 
paradise. We are tempted to wish to be hitched (just for a 
day, or to get round a bend,) to one of these miserable 
steamboats that go swashing by, frightening all the game- 
birds, and fouling the sweet air of Egypt with the black smoke 
of their chimneys. 

In default of going on, we climb a high spur of the Mokat- 
tam, which has a vast desert plain on each side, and in front, 
and up and down the very crooked river (the wind would 
need to change every five minutes to get us round these 
bends), an enormous stretch of green fields, dotted with 
villages, flocks of sheep and cattle, and strips of palm-groves. 
Whenever we get in Egypt this extensive view over mountains, 
desert, arable land, and river, it is always both lovely and 



404 A BAD REFCnATIUJY: 

grand. There was this afternoon on the bare limestone 
precipices a bloom as of incipient spring verdure. There is 
always some surprise of color for the traveler who goes 
ashore, or looks from his window, on the Nile, — either in the 
sky, or in the ground which has been steeped in color for so 
many ages that even the brown earth is rich. 

The people hereabouts have a bad reputation, perhaps given 
them by the government, against which they rebelled on 
account of excessive taxes ; the insurrection was reduced by 
knocking a village or two into the original dust with cannon 
balls. We, however, found the inhabitants very civil. In the 
village was one of the houses of entertainment for wanderers 
— a half-open cow-shed it would be called in less favored 
lands. The interior was decorated with the rudest designs in 
bright colors, and sentences from the Koran ; we were told 
that any stranger could lodge in it and have something to 
eat and drink ; but I should advise the coming traveler to 
bring his bed, and board also. We were offered the fruit of the 
nabbek tree (something like a sycamore), a small apple, a 
sort of cross between the thorn and the crab, with the 
disagreeable qualities of both. Most of the vegetables and 
fruits of the valley we find insipid ; but the Fellaheen seem 
to like neutral flavors as they do neutral colors. The almost 
universal brown of the gowns in this region harmonizes with 
the soil, and the color does not show dirt ; a great point for 
people who sit always on the ground. 

The next day we still have need of patience ; we start, meet 
an increasing wind, which whirls us about and blows us up 
stream. We creep under a bank and lie all day, a cold 
March day, and the air dark with dust. 

After this Sunday of rest, we walk all the following morn- 
ing through fields of wheat and lentils, along the shore. The 
people are uninteresting, men gruff; women ugly; clothes 
scarce ; fruit, the nabbek, which a young' lady climbs a tree to 
shake down for us. But I encountered here a little boy who 
filled my day with sunshine. 

He was a sort of shepherd boy, and I found him alone in a 



A LITTLE EGYPTIAN MOZART. 405 

field, the guardian of a donkey which was nibbling coarse grass. 
But his mind was not on his charge, and he was so much absorb- 
ed in his occupation that he did not notice my approach. He 
was playing, for his own delight and evidently with intense 
enjoyment, upon a reed pipe — an instrument of two short reeds, 
each with four holes, bound together, and played like a clarionet. 

Its compass was small, and the tune ran round and round in 
it, accompanied by one of the most doleful drones imaginable. 
Nothing could be more harrowing to the nerves. I got the boy 
to play it a good deal. I saw that it was an antique instrument 
(it was in fact Pan's pipe unchanged in five thousand years), 
and that the boy was a musical enthusiast — a gentle Mozart who 
lived in an ideal world which he created for himself in the midst 
of the most forlorn conditions. The little fellow had the knack 
of inhaling and blowing at the same time, expanding his cheeks, 
and using his stomach like the bellows of the Scotch bagpipe, 
and producing the same droning sound as that delightful instru- 
ment. But I would rather hear this boy half a day than the bag- 
pipe a week. 

I talked about buying the pipe, but the boy made it himself, 
and prized it so highly that I could not pay him what he thought 
it was worth, and I had not the heart to offer its real value. 
Therefore I left him in possession of his darling, and gave him 
half a silver piastre. He kissed it and thanked me warmly, 
holding the unexpected remuneration for his genius in his hand, 
and looking at it with shining eyes. I feel an instant pang, and 
I am sorry that I gave it to him. I have destroyed the pure and 
ideal world in which he played to himself, and tainted the divine 
love of sweet sounds with the idea of gain and the scent of 
money. The serenity of his soul is broken up, and he will never 
again be the same boy, exercising his talent merely for the pleas- 
ure of it. He will inevitably think of profit, and will feverishly 
expect something from every traveler. He may even fall so far 
as to repair to landings where boats stop, and play in the hope 
of backsheesh. 

At night we came to Assiout, greeted from afar by the sight 
of its slender and tall minarets and trees, on the rosy background 
of sunset. 




CHAPTER XXXII. 



JOTTINGS. 



LETTING our dahabeeh drift on in the morning, we spend 
the day at Assiout, intending to overtake it by a short cut 
across the oxbow which the river makes here. We saw in 
the city two examples, very unlike, of the new activity in Egypt. 
One related to education, the other to the physical development 
of the country and to conquest. 

After paying out respects to the consul, we were conducted by 
his two sons to the Presbyterian Mission-School. These young 
men were educated at the American College in Beyrout. Nearly 
everywhere we have been in the East, we have found a graduate 
of this school, that is as much as to say, a person intelligent and 
anxious and able to aid in the regeneration of his country. It 
would not be easy to overestimate the services that this one 
liberal institution of learning is doing in the Orient. 

The mission-school was under the charge of the Rev. Dr. 
John Hogg and his wife (both Scotch), with two women-teachers, 
and several native assistants. We were surprised to find an es- 
tablishment of about one hundred and twenty scholars, of whom 
over twenty were girls. Of course the majority of the students 
were in the primary studies, and some were very young ; but 
there were classes in advanced mathematics, in logic, history^ 
English, etc. The Arab young men have a fondness for logic 
and metaphysics, and develop easily an inherited subtlety in 
such studies. The text-books in use are Arabic, and that is the 
medium of teaching. 

The students come from all parts of Upper Egypt,, and are 

406 



ED UCA TION OF EG YP TIAN WOMEN. 407 

almost all the children of Protestant parents, and they are, with 
an occasional exception, supported by their parents, who pay at 
least their board while they are at school. There were few 
Moslems among them, I think only one Moslem girl. I am 
bound to say that the boys and young men in their close rooms 
did not present an attractive appearance ; an ill-assorted assem- 
bly, with the stamp of physical inferiority and dullness — an 
effect partially due to their scant and shabby apparel, for some 
of them had bright, intelligent faces. 

The school for girls, small as it is, impressed us as one of the 
most hopeful things in Egypt. I have no confidence in any 
scheme for the regeneration of the country, in any development 
of agriculture, or extension of territory, or even in education, that 
does not reach woman and radically change her and her posi- 
tion. It is not enough to say that the harem system is a curse 
to the East : woman herself is everywhere degraded. Until she 
becomes totally different from what she now is, I am not sure 
but the Arab is right in saying that the harem is a necessity : 
the woman is secluded in it (and in the vast majority of harems 
there is only one wife) and has a watch set over her, because 
she cannot be trusted. One hears that Cairo is full of intrigue, 
in spite of locked doors and eunuchs. The large towns are worse 
than the country ; but I have heard it said that woman is the evil 
and plague of Egypt — though I don't know how the country 
could go on without her. Sweeping generalizations are danger- 
ous, but it is said that the sole education of most Egyptian 
women is in arts to stimulate the passion of men. In the idleness 
of the most luxurious harem, in the grim poverty of the lowest 
cabin, woman is simply an animal. 

What can you expect of her? She is literally uneducated, 
untrained in every respect. She knows no more of domestic 
economy than she does of books, and she is no more fitted to 
make a house attractive or a room tidy than she is to hold an 
intelligent conversation. Married when she is yet a child, to 
a person she may have never seen, and a mother at an age 
when she should be in school, there is no opportunity for her to 
become anything better than she is. 



408 DR- HOGG'S MISSION-SCHOOL. 

A primary intention in this school is to fit the girls to become 
good wives, who can set an example of tidy homes economically 
managed, in which there shall be something of social life and 
intelligent companionship between husband and wife. The girls 
are taught the common branches, sewing, cooking, and house- 
keeping — as there is opportunity for learning it in the family of 
the missionaries. This house of Dr. Hogg's, with its books, 
music, civilized jne'nage, is a school in itself, and the girl who 
has access to it for three or four years will not be content with 
the inconvenience, the barren squalor of her parental hovel ; for 
it is quite as much ignorance as poverty that produces miserable 
homes. Some of the girls now here expect to become teachers ; 
some will marry young men who are also at this school. Such 
an institution would be of incalculable service if it did nothing 
else than postpone the marriage of women a few years. This 
school is a small seed in Egypt, but it is, I believe, the germ of 
a social revolution. It is, I think, the only one in Upper Egypt. 
There is a mission school of similar character in Cairo, and the 
Khedive also has undertaken schools for the education of girls. 

In the last room we came to the highest class, a dozen girls, 
some of them mere children in appearence, but all of marriage- 
able age. I asked the age of one pretty child, who showed 
uncommon brightness in her exercises, 

"She is twelve," said the superintendent, "and no doubt 
would be married, if she were not here. The girls become 
marriageable from eleven years, and occasionally they marry 
younger; if one is not married at fifteen she is in danger of 
remaining single." ^ 

" Do the Moslems oppose your school.? " 

" The heads of the religion endeavor to prevent Moslem 
children coming to it; we have had considerable trouble ; but 
generally the mothers would like to have their girls taught here, 
they become better daughters and more useful at home." 

" Can you see that you gain here } " 

" Little by little. The mission has been a wonderful success. 
I have been in Egypt eighteen years ; since the ten years that 
we have been at Assiout, we have planted, in various towns in 
Upper Egypt, ten churches." 



RELIGION AND GRAMMAR. 409 

"What do do you think is your greatest difficulty ? " 

" Well, perhaps the Arabic language." 

*' The labor of mastering it ? " 

" Not that exactly, although it is an unending study. Arabic 
is an exceedingly rich language, as you know — a tongue that has 
often a hundred words for one simple object has almost infinite 
capabilities for expressing shades of meaning. To know 
Arabic grammatically is the work of a lifetime. A man says, 
when he has given a long life to it, that he knows a little Arabic. 
My Moslem teacher here, who was as learned an Arab as I ever 
knew, never would hear me in a grammatical lesson upon any 
passage he had not carefully studied beforehand. He begged 
me to excuse him, one morning, from hearing me (I think we 
were reading from the Koran) because he had not had time to go 
over the portion to be read. Still, the difficulty of which I speak, 
is that Arabic and the Moslem religion are one and the same 
thing, in the minds of the faithful. To know Arabic is to learn 
the Koran, and that is the learning of a learned Arab. He never 
gets to the end of the deep religious meaning hidden in the 
grammatical intricacies. Religion and grammar thus become 
one." 

" I suppose that is what our dragoman means, when he is read- 
ing me something out of the Koran, and comes to a passage that 
he calls too deep." 

" Yes, There is room for endless differences of opinion in the 
rendering of almost any passage, and the disagreement is impor- 
tant, because it becomes a religious difference. I had an 
example of the unity of the language and the religion in the 
Moslem mind. When I came here the learned thought I must 
be a Moslem because I knew the grammatical Arabic; they 
could not conceive how else I should know it." 

When we called upon his excellency, Shakeer Pasha, the 
square in front of his office and the streets leading to it were so 
covered with sitting figures that it was difficulty to make a way 
amidst them. There was an unusual assembly of some sort, but 
its purport we could not guess. It was hardly in the nature of a 
popular convention, although its members sat at their ease, 



410 THE ROUTE TO DARFOOR. 

smoking, and a babel of talk arose. Nowhere else in Egypt have 
I seen so many fine and even white-looking men gathered together. 
The center of every group was a clerk, with inkhorn and reed^ 
going over columns of figures. 

The governor's quarters were a good specimen of Oriental 
style and shabbiness ; spacious whitewashed apartments, with 
dirty faded curtains. But we were received with a politeness 
that would have befitted a palace, and with the cordial ease of 
old friends. The Pasha was heartbroken that we had not noti- 
fied him of our coming, and that now our time would not permit 
us to stay and accept a dinner — had we not promised to do so on 
our return t He would send couriers and recall our boat, he 
would detain us by force. Allowing for all the exaggeration of 
Oriental phraseology, it appeared only too probable that the 
Pasha would die if we did not stay to dinner and spend the night. 
But we did not. 

This great concourse ? Oh, they were skeykhs and head men 
of all the villages in the country round, whom he had summoned 
to arrange for the purchase of dromedaries. The government 
has issued orders for the purchase of a large number, which it 
wants to send to Darfour. The Khedive is making a great effort 
to open the route to Darfour (twenty-eight days by camel) to 
regular and safe travel, and to establish stations on the road. 
That immense and almost unknown territory will thus be brought 
within the commercial world. 

During our call we were served with a new beverage in place 
of coffee ; it was a hot and sweetened tea of cinnamon, and very 
delicious. 

On our return to the river, we passed the new railway station- 
building, which is to be a handsome edifice of white limestone. 
Men. women, and children are impressed to labor on it, and, an 
intelligent Copt told us, without pay. Very young girls were the 
mortar-carriers, and as they walked to and fro, with small boxes 
on their heads, they sang, the precocious children, an Arab love^ 

song;— . 

" He passed by my door, he did not speak to me." 

We have seen little girls, quite as small as these, forced to 



A STRIKING CONTRAST. 411 

load coal upon the steamers, and beaten and cuffed by the over- 
seers. It is a hard country for women. They have only a year 
or two of time, in which all-powerful nature and the wooing sun 
sing within them the songs of love, then a few years of married 
slavery, and then ugliness, old age, and hard work. 

I do not know a more melancholy subject of reflection than 
the condition, the lives of these women we have been seeing 
for three months. They have neither any social nor any 
religious life. If there were nothing else to condemn the 
system of Mohammed, this is sufficient. I know what splen- 
dors of art it has produced, what achievements in war, what 
benefits to literature and science in the dark ages of Europe. 
But all the culture of a race that in its men has borne accom- 
plished scholars, warriors, and artists, has never touched the 
women. The condition of woman in the Orient is the 
conclusive verdict against the religion of the Prophet. 

I will not contrast that condition with the highest ; I will 
not compare a collection of Egyptian women, assembled for 
any purpose, a funeral or a wedding, with a society of 
American ladies in consultation upon some work of charity^ 
nor with an English drawing-room. I chanced once to be 
present at a representation of Verdi's Grand Mass, in Venice, 
when all the world of fashion, of beauty, of intelligence, 
assisted. The coup cToeil was brilliant. Upon the stage, half 
a hundred of the chorus-singers were ladies. The leading 
solo-singers were ladies. I remember the freshness, the 
beauty even, the vivacity, the gay decency of the toilet, of 
that group of women who contributed their full share in a 
most intelligent and at times profoundly pathetic rendering 
of the Mass. I recall the sympathetic audience, largely 
composed of women, the quick response to a noble strain 
nobly sung, the cheers, the tears even which were not want- 
ing in answer to the solemn appeal, in fine, the highly 
civilized sensitiveness to the best product of religious art. 
Think of some such scene as that, and of the women of an 
European civilization ; and then behold the women who are 
the product of this, — the sad, dark fringe of water-drawers 
and baby-carriers, for eight hundred miles along the Nile. 



412 WINTER RESIDENCE OF THE HOL V TAMIL Y. 

We have a row in the sandal of nine miles before we 
overtake our dahabeeh, which the wind still baffles. However, 
we slip along under the cover of darkness, for, at dawn, I 
hear the muezzin calling to prayer at Manfaloot, trying in 
vain to impress a believing but drowsy world, that prayer is 
better than sleep. This is said to be the place where Lot 
passed the period of his exile. Near here, also, the Holy 
Family sojourned when it spent a winter in Egypt. (The 
Moslems have appropriated and localized everything in our 
Scriptures which is picturesque, and they plant our Biblical 
characters where it is convenient). It is a very pretty town, 
with minarets and gardens. 

It surprises us to experience such cool weather towards the 
middle of March ; at nine in the morning the thermometer 
marks 55°; the north wind is cold, but otherwise the day is 
royal. Having nothing better to do we climb the cliffs of 
Gebel Aboofeyda, at least a thousand feet above the river ; 
for ten miles it presents a bold precipice, unscalable except at 
intervals. We find our way up a ravine. The rocks surface 
the river and in the ravine are worn exactly as the sea wears 
rock, honeycombed by the action of water, and excavated into 
veritable sea-caves near the summit. The limestone is rich 
in fossil shells. 

The plain on top presented a singular appearance. It was 
strewn with small boulders, many of them round and as 
shapely as cannon-balls, all formed no doubt before the 
invention of the conical missiles. While we were amusing 
ourselves with the thousand fantastic freaks of nature in 
hardened clay, two sinister Arabs approached us from behind 
and cut off our retreat. One was armed with a long gun and 
the other with a portentous spear. We saluted them in the 
most friendly manner, and hoped that they would pass on : 
but, no, they attached themselves to us. I tried to think of 
cases of travelers followed into the desert on the Nile and 
murdered, but none occurred to me. There seemed to be no 
danger from the gun so long as we kept near its owner, for 
the length of it would prevent his bringing it into action close 



A MIRAGE. 4X3 



at hand. The spear appeared to be the more effective weapon 
of the two ; it was so, for I soon ascertained that the gun was 
not loaded and that its bearer had neither powder nor balls. 
It turned out that this was a detachment of the local guard, 
sent out to protect us ; it would have been a formidable party 
in case of an attack. 

Continuing our walk over the stone-clad and desolate 
swells, it suddenly occurred to us that we had become so 
accustomed to this sort of desert-walking, with no green or 
growing thing in sight, that it had ceased to seem strange to 
us. It gave us something like a start, therefore, shortly after, 
to see, away to the right, blue water forming islands out of 
the hill-tops along the horizon ; there was an appearance of 
verdure about the edge of the water, and dark clouds sailed 
over it. There was, however, when we looked steadily, about 
the whole landscape a shimmer and a shadowy look that 
taught us to know that it was a mirage; the rich Nile valley 
below us, with the blue water, the green fields, the black lines 
of palms, was dimly mirrored in the sky and thrown upon 
the desert hills in the distance. We stood where we could 
compare the original picture with the blurred copy. 

Making our way down the face of the cliff, along some 
ledges, we came upon many grottoes and mummy-pits cut in 
the rock, all without sculptures, except one ; this had on one 
side an arched niche and pilasters from which the arch sprung. 
The vault of the niche had been plastered and painted, and a 
Greek cross was chiseled in each pilaster ; but underneath 
the plaster the rock was in ornamental squares, lozenges and 
curves in Saracenic style, although it may have been ancient 
Egyptian. How one religion has whitewashed, and lived on 
the remains of another here ; the tombs of one age become the 
temples of another and the dwellings of a third. On these 
ledges, and on the desert above, we found bits of pottery. 
Wherever we have wandered, however far into the desert from 
the river, we never get beyond the limit of broken pottery ; and 
this evidence of man's presence everywhere, on the most barren 
of these high or low plains of stone and sand, speak of age ajad 



414r TRACES OF SUCCESSIVE AGES. 

of human occupation as clearly as the temples and monuments. 
There is no virgin foot of desert even ; all is worn and used. 
Human feet have trodden it in every direction for ages. Even 
on high peaks where the eagles sit, men have piled stones and 
made shelters, perhaps lookouts for enemies, it may be five 
hundred, it may be three thousand years ago. There is nowhere 
in Egypt a virgin spot. 

By moonlight we are creeping under the frowning cliffs of 
Aboofeyda, and voyage on all night in a buccaneerish fashion ; 
and next day sail by Hadji Kandeel, where travelers disembark 
for Tel el Amarna. The remains of a once vast city strew the 
plain, but we only survey it through a field-glass. What, we 
sometimes say in our more modern moments, is one spot more 
than another.? The whole valley is a sepulchre of dead civiliz- 
ations ; its inhabitants were stowed away, tier on tier, shelf on 
shelf, in these ledges. 

However, respect for age sent us in the afternoon to the 
grottoes on the north side of the cliff of Sheykh Said. This 
whole curved range, away round to the remains of Antinoe, is 
full of tombs. Some that we visited are large and would be 
very comfortable dwellings ; they had been used for Christian 
churches, having been plastered and painted. Traces of one 
painting remain — trees and a comical donkey, probably part of 
the story of the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. We 
found in one the ovals of Cheops, the builder of the great 
pyramid, and much good sculpture in the best old manner — 
agricultural scenes, musicians, dancers, beautifully cut, with 
careful details and also with spirit. This is very old work, 
and, even abused as it has been, it is as good as any the 
traveler will find in Egypt. This tomb no doubt goes back 
to the fourth dynasty, and its drawing of animals, cows, birds, 
and fish is better than we usually see later. In a net in 
which fish are taken, many kinds are represented, and so 
faithfully that the species are recognizable; in a marsh is seen 
a hippopotamus, full of life and viciousness, drawn with his 
mouth stretched asunder wide enough to serve for a men- 
agerie show-bill. There are some curious false doors and 



THE GROTTOES A T BENI HASSAN. 415 

architectural ornaments, like those of the same epoch in the 
tombs at the pyramids. 

At night we were at Rhoda, where is one of the largest of 
the Khedive's sugar-factories; and the next morning at Beni 
Hassan, famed, next to Thebes, for its grottoes, which have pre- 
served to us, in painted scenes, so much of the old Egyptian 
life. Whoever has seen pictures of these old paintings and 
read the vast amount of description and inferences concerning 
the old Egyptian life, based upon them, must be disappointed 
when he sees them to-day. In the first place they are only 
painted, not cut, and in this respect are inferior to those in the 
grottoes of Sheykh Said; in the second place, they are so 
defaced, as to be with difficulty deciphered, especially those 
depicting the trades. 

Some of the grottoes are large — sixty feet by forty feet; 
line apartments in the rock, high and well lighted by the 
portal. Architecturally, no tombs are more interesting; some 
of the ceilings are vaulted, in three sections ; they are sup- 
ported by fluted pillars some like the Doric, and some in the 
beautiful lotus style ; the pillars have architraves ; and there 
are some elaborately wrought false doorways. And all this 
goes to show that, however ancient these tombs are, they 
imitated stone buildings already existing in a highly developed 
architecture. 

Essentially the same subjects are represented in all the 
tombs ; these are the trades, occupations, amusements of the 
people. Men are blowing glass, working in gold, breaking 
flax, tending herds (even doctoring animals that are ill), 
chiseling statues, painting, turning the potter's wheel; the 
barber shaves his customer ; two men play at draughts ; the 
games most in favor are wrestling and throwing balls, and in 
the latter women play. But what one specially admires is 
the honesty of the decorators, which conceals nothing from 
posterity; the punishment of the bastinado is again and again 
represented, and even women are subject to it ; but respect 
was shown for sex ; the women was not cast upon the ground, 
she kneels and takes the flagellation on her shoulders. 



416 MISTAKEN VIEWS. 



We saw in these tombs no horses among the many animals ; 
we have never seen the horse in any sculptures except har- 
nessed in a war-chariot; "the horse and his rider" do not 
appear. 

There is a scene here which was the subject of a singular 
mistake, that illustrates the needless zeal of early explorers to 
find in everything in Egypt confirmation of the Old Testament 
narrative. A procession, painted on the wall, now known to 
represent the advent of an Asiatic tribe into Egypt, perhaps 
the Shepherds, in a remote period, was declared to represent 
the arrival of Joseph's brethren. The tomb, however, was 
made several centuries before the advent of Joseph himself. 
And even if it were of later date than the event named, we 
should not expect to find in it a record of an occurrence of 
such little significance at that time. We ought not to be 
surprised at the absence in Egypt of traces of the Israelitish 
sojourn, and we should not be, if we looked at the event from 
the Egyptian point of view and not from ours. In a view of 
the great drama of the ancient world in the awful Egyptian 
perspective, the Jewish episode is relegated to its proper 
proportion in secular history. The whole Jewish history, as 
a worldly phenomenon, occupies its narrow limits. The 
incalculable effect upon desert tribes of a long sojourn in a 
highly civilized state, the subsequent development of law and 
of a literature unsurpassed in after times, and the final flower 
into Christianity, — it is in the light of all this that we read 
the smallest incident of Jewish history, and are in the habit of 
magnifying its contemporary relations. It was the slenderest 
thread in the days of Egyptian puissance. In the ancient 
atmosphere of Egypt, events purely historical fall into their 
proper proportions. Many people have an idea that the 
ancient world revolved round the Jews, and even hold it as a 
sort of religious faith. 

It is difficult to believe that the race we see here are 
descendants of the active, inventive, joyous people who 
painted their life upon these tombs. As we lie all the after- 
noon before a little village opposite Beni Hassan, I wonder 



DUST AND ASHES. 417 



for the hundredth time what it is that saves such miserable- 
places from seeming to us as vile as the most w^retched abodes 
of poverty in our own land. Is it because, with an ever- 
cheerful sun and a porous soil, this village is not so filthy as 
a like abode of misery would be with us? Is it that the 
imagination invests the foreign and the Orient with its own 
hues; or is it that our reading, prepossessing our minds, gives 
the lie to all our senses ? I cannot understand why we are 
not more disgusted with such a scene as this. Not to weary 
you with a repetition of scenes sufficiently familiar, let us put 
the life of the Egyptian fellah, as it appears at the moment, 
into a paragraph. 

Here is a jumble of small mud-hovels, many of them only- 
roofed with cornstalks, thrown together without so much 
order as a beaver would use in building a village, distinguish- 
able only from dog-kennels in that they have wooden doors — 
not distinguishable from them when the door is open and a 
figure is seen in the aperture. Nowhere any comfort or 
cleanliness, except that sometimes the inner kennel, of which 
the woman guards the key, will have its floor swept and clean 
matting in one corner. The court about which there are two 
or three of these kennels, serves the family for all purposes; 
there the fire for cooking is built, there are the water-jars, and 
the stone for grinding corn ; there the chickens and the dogs 
are; there crouch in the dirt women and men, the womea 
spinning, making bread, or nursing children, the men in 
vacant idleness. While the women stir about and go for 
water, the men will sit still all day long. The amount of 
sitting down here in Egypt is inconceivable; you might 
almost call it the feature of the country. No one in the 
village knows anything, either of religion or of the world; 
no one has any plans ; no one exhibits any interest in any- 
thing; can any of them have any hopes? From this life 
nearly everything but the animal is eliminated. Children, 
and pretty children, swarm, tumbling about everywhere; 
besides, nearly every woman has one in her arms. 

We ought not to be vexed at this constant north wind 
37 



418 OSMAN BEY. 



which baffles us, for they say it is necessary to the proper 
filling out of the wheat heads. The boat drifts about all day 
in a mile square, having passed the morning on a sand-spit 
where the stupidity and laziness of the crew placed it; and 
we have leisure to explore the large town of Minieh, which 
lies prettily along the river. Here is a costly palace, which I 
believe has never been occupied by the Khedive, and a garden 
attached, less slovenly in condition than those of country 
palaces usually are. The sugar-factory is furnished with 
much costly machinery, which could not have been bought 
for less than half a million of dollars. Many of the private 
houses give evidences of wealth in their highly ornamented 
doorways and Moorish arches, but the mass of the town is of 
the usual sort here — tortuous lanes in which weary hundreds 
of people sit in dirt, poverty, and resignation. We met in the 
street and in the shops many coal-black Nubians and negroes, 
smartly dressed in the recent European style, having an 
impudent air, who seemed to be persons of wealth and con- 
sideration here. In the course of our wanderings I came to 
a large public building, built in galleries about an open court, 
and unwittingly in my examination of it, stumbled into the 
apartment of the Governor, Osman Bey, who was giving 
audience to all comers. Justice is still administered in 
patriarchal style ; the door is open to all ; rich and poor were 
crowding in, presenting petitions and papers of all sorts, and 
among them a woman preferred a request. Whether justice 
was really done did not appear, but Oriental hospitality is at 
least unfailing. Before I could withdraw, having discovered 
my blunder, the governor welcomed me with all politeness 
and gave me a seat beside him. We smiled at each other in 
Arabic and American, and came to a perfect understanding 
on coffee and cigarettes. 

The next morning we are slowly passing the Copt convent 
of Gebel e' Tayr, and expecting the appearance of the swim- 
ming Christians. There is a good opportunity to board us, 
but no one appears. Perhaps because it is Sunday and 
these Christians do not swim on Sunday. No. We learn 



A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 419 

from a thinly clad and melancholy person who is regarding 
us from the rocks that the Khedive has forbidden this disa- 
greeable exhibition of muscular Christianity. It was quite 
time. But thus, one by one, the attractions of the Nile 
vanish. 

What a Sunday ! But not an exceptional day. " Oh dear," 
says madame, in a tone of injury, "here's another fine day ! " 
Although the north wind is strong, the air is soft, caressing, 
elastic. 

More and more is forced upon us the contrast of the 
scenery of Upper and Lower Egypt. Here it is not simply 
that the river is wider and the mountains more removed and 
the arable land broader; the lines are all straight and hori- 
zontal, the mountain-ranges are level-topped, parallel to the 
flat prairies — at sunset a low level of white limestone hills in 
the east looked exactly like a long line of fence whitewashed. 
In Upper Egypt, as we have said, the plains roll, the hills are 
broken, there are pyramidal mountains, and evidences of 
upheaval and disorder. But these wide sweeping and majes- 
tic lines have their charm ; the sunsets and sunrises are in 
some respects finer than in Nubia ; the tints are not so 
delicate, the colors not so pure, but the moister atmosphere 
and clouds make them more brilliant and various. The 
dawn, like the after-glow, is long; the sky burns half round 
with rose and pink, the color mounts high up. The sunsets 
are beyond praise, and always surprise. Last night the 
reflection in the east was of a color unseen before — almost a 
purple below and a rose above; and the west glowed for an 
hour in changing tints. The night was not less beautiful — 
we have a certain comfort in contrasting both with March in 
New England. It was summer ; the Nile slept, the moon 
half-full, let the stars show ; and as we glided swiftly down, 
the oars rising and falling to the murmured chorus of the 
rowers, there were deep shadows under the banks, and the 
stately palms, sentinelling the vast plain of moonlight over 
which we passed, — the great silence of an Egyptian night — 
seemed to remove us all into dreamland. The land was 



420 TWENTY AilLES OF BA THERS l 

Still, except for the creak of an occasional shadoof worked by 
some wise man who thinks it easier to draw water in the 
night than in the heat of the day, or an aroused wolfish dog, 
or a solitary bird piping on the shore. 

Thus we go, thus we stay, in tlae delicious weather, encouraged 
now and again by a puff of southern wind, but held back from 
our destination by some mysterious angel of delay. But one day 
the wind comes, the sail is distended, the bow points down- 
stream, and we move at the dizzy rate of five miles an hour. 

It is a day of incomparable beauty. We see very little labor 
along the Nile ; the crops are maturing. But the whole popula- 
tion comes to the river, to bathe, to sit in the shallows, to sit on 
the bank. All the afternoon we pass groups, men, women, child- 
ren, motionless, the picture of idleness. There they are, hour 
after hour, in the sun. Women, coming for water, put down 
their jars, and bathe and frolic in the grateful stream. In some 
distant reaches of the river there are rows of women along the 
shore, exactly like the birds which stand in the shallow places 
or sun themselves on the sand. There are more than twenty 
miles of bathers, of all sexes and ages. 

When at last we come to a long sand-reef, dotted with storks, 
cranes and pelicans, the critic says he is glad to see something 
with feathers on it. 

We are in full tide of success and puffed up with confidence : 
it is perfectly easy to descend the Nile. All the latter part of 
the afternoon we are studying the False Pyramid of Maydoon, 
that structure, older than Cheops, built, like all the primitive 
monuments, in degrees, as the Tower of Babel was, as the 
Chaldean temples were. It lifts up, miles away from the river, 
only a broken mass from the debris at its base. We leave it 
behind. We shall be at Bedreshayn, for Memphis, before day- 
light. As we turn in, the critic says, 

" We've got the thing in our own hands now." 

Alas! the Lord reached down and took it out. The wind 
chopped suddenly, and blew a gale from the north. At breakfast 
time we were waltzing round opposite the pyramids of Dashoor, 
liable to go aground on islands and sandbars, and unable to make 



RUINS OF MEMPHIS. 421 

the land. Determined not to lose the day, we anchored, took 
the sandal, had a long pull, against the gale, to Bedreshayn, and 
mounted donkeys for the ruins of ancient Memphis, 

When Herodotus visited Memphis, probably about four hundred 
and fifty years before Christ, it was a great city. He makes 
special mention of its temple of Vulcan, whose priests gave him 
a circumstantial account of the building of the city by Menes, 
the first Pharaoh. Four hundred years later, Diodorus found it 
magnificent ; about the beginning of the Christian era, Strabo 
says it was next in size to Alexandria. Although at the end of 
the twelfth century it had been systematically despoiled to 
build Cairo, an Arab traveler says that, " its ruins occupy a space 
half a day's journey every way," and that its wonders could not 
be described. Temples, palaces, gardens, villas, acres of common 
dwellings — the city covered this vast plain with its splendor and 
its squalor. 

The traveler now needs a guide to discover a vestige, a stone 
here and there, of this once most magnificent capital. Here 
came Moses and Aaron, from the Israelitish settlement in the 
Delta, from Zoan (Tanis) probably, to beg Menephtah to let the 
Jews depart ; here were performed the miracles of the Exodus. 
This is the Biblical Noph, against which burned the wrath of 
the prophets. " No (Heliopolis, or On) shall be rent asunder, 
and Noph shall have distresses daily." The decree was " publish- 
ed in Noph " : — " Noph shall be waste and desolate without an 
inhabitant; " " I will cause their images to cease out of Noph." 

The images have ceased, the temples have either been removed 
or have disappeared under the deposits of inundations; you 
would ride over old Memphis without knowing it, but the inhab- 
itants have returned to this fertile and exuberant plain. It is 
only in the long range of pyramids and the great necropolis in 
the desert that you can find old Memphis. 

The superabundant life of the region encountered us at once. 
At Bedreshayn is a ferry, and its boats were thronged, chiefly 
by women, coming and going, and always with a load of grain 
or other produce on the head. We rode round the town on an 
elevated dyke, lined with palms, and wound onward over a flat. 



422 DEPARTED GLORY. 



rich with wheat and barley, to Mitrahenny, a little village in a 
splendid palm-grove. This marks the central spot of the ruins 
of old Memphis. Here are some mounds, here are found frag- 
ments of statues and cut stones, which are preserved in a tempo- 
rary shelter. And here, lying on its side, in a hollow from which 
the water was just subsiding, is a polished colossal statue of 
Rameses II. — the Pharaoh who left more monuments of less 
achievements than any other " swell " of antiquity. The face is 
handsome, as all his statues are, and is probably conventional- 
ized like our pictures of George Washington, or Napoleon's busts 
of himself. I confess to a feeling of perfect satisfaction at seeing 
his finely chiseled nose rooting in the mud. 

This — some mounds some fragments of stone, and the statue, 
— was all we saw of Memphis. But I should like to have spent 
a day in this lovely grove, which was carpeted with the only turf 
I saw in Egypt ; reclining upon the old mounds in the shade, and 
pretending to think of Menes and Moses and Menephtah ; and of 
Rhampsinitus, the king who " descended alive into the place 
which the Greeks call Hades, and there played at dice with Ceres, 
and sometimes won, and other times lost," and of the treasure- 
house he built here ; and whether, as Herodotus believed, Helen, 
the beautiful cause of the Iliad? really once dwelt in a palace 
here, and whether Homer ever recited his epic in these streets. 

We go on over the still rich plain to the village of Sakkarah 
— chiefly babies and small children. The cheerful life of this 
prarie fills us with delight — flocks of sheep, herds of buffaloes, 
trains of dromedaries, hundreds of laborers of both sexes in the 
fields, children skylarking about; on every path are women, 
always with a basket on the head, their blue cotton gown (the 
only article of dress except ahead-shawl,) open in front, blowing 
back so as to show their figures as they walk. 

When we reach the desert we are in the presence of death — 
perhaps the most mournful sight on this earth is a necropolis in the 
desert, savage, sand-drifted, plundered, all its mounds dug over 
and over. We ride along at the bases of the pyramids. I stop 
at one, climb over the debris at its base, and break off a frag- 
ment of stone. The pyramid is of crumbling limestone, and, built 



TOMBS OF THE SACRED BULLS. 423 

in stages or degrees, like that of Maydoon; it is slowly becom- 
ing an unsightly heap. And it is time. This is believed to be 
the oldest structure in the world, except the Tower of Babel. 
It seems to have been the sepulchre of Keken, a king of the second 
dynasty. At this period hieroglyphic writing was developed, 
but the construction and ornamentation of the doorway of the 
pyramid exhibit art in its infancy. This would seem to show 
that the Egyptians did not emigrate from Asia with the developed 
and highly perfected art found in the sculptures of the tombs of 
the fourth, fifth, and sixth dynasties, as some have supposed, 
but that there was a growth, which was arrested later. 

But no inference in regard to old Egypt is safe ; a discovery 
tomorrow may upset it. Statues recently found, representing 
persons living in the third dynasty, present a different type of 
race from that shown in statues of the fourth and fifth dynasties. 
So that, in that period in which one might infer a growth of art, 
there may have been a change of the dominating race. 

The first great work of Mariette Bey in Egypt — and it is a 
monument of his sagacity, enthusiasm, and determination, was the 
unearthing, in this waste of Memphis, the lost Serapeum and the 
Apis Mausoleum, the tombs of the sacred bulls. The remains of 
the temple are again covered with sand ; but the visitor can 
explore the Mausoluem. He can walk, taper in hand, through 
endless galleries, hewn in the rock, passing between rows of 
gigantic granite sarcophagi, in which once rested the mummies 
of the sacred bulls. Living, the bull was daintily fed — the Nile 
water unfiltered was thought to be too fattening for him — and 
devotedly worshipped; and dying, he was entombed in a 
sepulchre as magnificent as that of kings, and his adorers lined 
the walls of his tomb with votive offerings. It is partly from 
these stelse, or slabs with inscriptions, that Mariette Bey has 
added so much to our knowledge of Egyptian history. 

Near the Serapeum is perhaps the most elegant tomb in Egypt, 
the tomb of Tih, who lived in the fifth dynasty, some time later 
than Cheops, but when hippopotami abounded in the river in front 
of his farm, Although Tih was a priest, he was a gentleman of 
elegant tastes, an agriculturist, a sportsman. He had a model 



424: A SECOND VISIT. 



farm, as you may see by the buildings and by the thousand 
details of good management here carved. His tomb does him 
great credit. In all the work of later times there is nothing so 
good as this sculpture, so free, so varied, so beautiful ; it prom- 
ises everything. Tih even had, what we do not expect in people, 
of that early time, humor ; you are sure of it from some of the 
pictures here. He must have taken delight in decorating his 
tomb, and have spent, altogether, some pleasant years in it 
before he occupied it finally ; so that he had become accustomed 
to staying here. 

But his rule was despotic, it was that of the " stick." Egypt- 
ians have never changed in this respect, as we have remarked 
before. They are now, as then, under the despotism of some 
notion of governance — divine or human — despotic and fateful. 
The " stick " is as old as the monarchy ; it appears in these tombs ; 
as to day, nobody then worked or paid taxes without its appli- 
cation. 

The sudden arrest of Egyptian art was also forced upon us 
next day, in a second visit to the pyramids of Geezeh. We spent 
most of the day in the tombs there. In some of them we saw 
the ovals of all the kings of the fourth dynasty, many of them 
perfect and fresh in color. As to drawing, cutting, variety, live- 
liness of attitude and color, there is nothing better, little so good, 
in tombs of recent date. We find almost every secular subject 
in the early tombs that is seen in the latest. In thousands of 
years, the Egyptians scarcely changed or made any progress. 
The figures of men and animals are better executed in these old 
tombs than in the later. Again, these tombs are free from the 
endless repetitions of gods and of offerings to them. The life of 
the people represented is more natural, less superstitious ; 
common events are naively portrayed, with the humorous uncon- 
sciousness of a simple age ; art has thought it not unworthy its 
skill to represent the fact in one tomb, that men acted as mid- 
wives to cows, in the dawn of history. 

While we lay at Geezeh we visited one of the chicken-hatching 
establishments for which the Egyptians have been famous from 
a remote period. It was a very unpretending affair, in a dirty 



AN AR TIF I CI A L MO THER. 425 



suburb of the town. We were admitted into a low mud-building, 
and into a passage with ovens on each side. In these ovens the 
eggs are spread upon mats, and the necessary fire is made under- 
neath. The temperature is at 100'' to loS*' Fahrenheit. Each 
oven has a hole in the center, through which the naked attendant 
crawls to turn the eggs from time to time. The process requires 
usually twenty-one days, but some eggs hatch on the twentieth. 
The eggs are supplied by the peasants who usually receive, with- 
out charge, half as many chickens as they bring eggs. About 
one third of the eggs do not hatch. The hatching is only per- 
formed about three months in the year, during the spring. 

In the passage, before one of the ovens, was a heap of soft 
chickens, perhaps half a bushel, which the attendant scraped 
together whenever they attempted to toddle off. We had the 
pleasure of taking up some handfuls of them. We also looked into 
the ovens, where there was a stir of life, and were permitted to 
hold some eggs while the occupants kicked off the shell. 

I don't know that a plan will ever be invented by which eggs, 
as well as chickens, will be produced without the intervention 
of the hen. If one could be, it would leave the hen so much 
more time to scratch — it would relieve her from domestic cares 
so that she could take part in public affairs. The hen in Egypt 
is only partially emancipated, But since she is relieved from 
setting, I do not know that she is any better hen. She lays very 
small eggs. 

This ends what I have to say about the hen. We have come 
to Cairo, and the world is again before us, 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



THE KHEDIVE. 



WHAT excitement there is in adjacency to a great city! 
To hear its inarticulate hum, to feel the thrill of its 
myriads, the magnetism of a vast society ! How the 
pulse quickens at the mere sight of multitudes of buildings, and 
the overhanging haze of smoke and dust that covers a little from 
the sight of the angels the great human struggle and folly. How 
impatient one is to dive into the ocean of his fellows. 

The stir of life has multiplied every hour in the past two days. 
The river swarms with boats, the banks are vocal with labor, 
traffic, merriment. This morning early we are dropping down 
past huge casernes full of soldiers — the bank is lined with them, 
thousands of them, bathing and washing their clothes, their 
gabble filling the air. We see again the lofty mosque of Mo- 
hamed Ali, the citadel of Saladin, the forest of minarets above 
the brown roofs of the town. We pass the isle of Rhoda and the 
ample palaces of the Queen-Mother. We moor at Gezereh 
amid a great shoal of dahabeehs, returned from High Egypt, 
deserted of their passengers, flags down, blinds closed — a specta- 
cle to fill one Avith melancholy that so much pleasure is over. 

The dahabeehs usually discharge their passengers at Gezereh, 
above the bridge. If the boat goes below with baggage it is 
subject to a port-duty, as if it were a traveler, — besides the tax 
for passing the draw-bridge. We decide to remain some days on 
our boat, because it is comfortable, and because we want to 
postpone the dreaded breaking up of housekeeping, packing up 
our scattered effects, and moving. Having obtained permission 

426 



ABD-EL-A TTI DISCO URSES. 427 

to moor at the government dock below Kasr-el-Nil, we drop 
down there. 

The first person to greet us there is Aboo Yusef, the owner. 
Behind him comes Habib Bagdadli, the little Jew partner. 
There is always that in his mien which says, " I was really born 
in Bagdad, but I know you still think I am a Jew from Algiers. 
No, gentlemens, you wrong a man to whom reputation is every- 
thing." But he is glad to see his boat safe ; he expresses as much 
pleasure as one can throw from an eye with a cast in it. Aboo 
Yusef is radiant. He is attired gorgeously, in a new suit, from 
fresh turban to red slippers, on the profits of the voyage. His 
robe is silk, his sash is cashmere. He overflows with compli- 
mentary speech. 

"Allah be praised, I see you safe." 

"We have reason to be grateful." 

"And that you had a good journey." 

" A perfect journey." 

" We have been made desolate by your absence ; thank God, 
you have enjoyed the winter." 

" I suppose you are glad to see the boat back safe also } " 

"That is nothing, not to mention it, I not think of it; the 
return of the boat safe, that is nothing. I only think that you 
are safe. But it is a good boat. You will say it is the first-class 
of boats.'' And she goes up the cataract all right. Did I not 
say she go up the cataract } Abd-el-Atti he bear me witness." 

"You did. You said so. Habib said so also. Was there any 
report here in Cairo that we could not go up," 

" Mashallah. Such news. The boat was lost in the cataract ; 
the reis was drowned. For the loss of the boat I did not care; 
only if you were safe." 

" Did you hear that the cataract reises objected to take us 
up ? " 

" What rascals ! " They always make the traveler some trouble. 
But, Allah forgive us all, the head reis is dead. Not so, Abd-el- 
Atti ? " 

" What, the old reis that we said good-bye to only a little 
while ago at Assouan ? " 



428 CAIRO AGAIN. 



" Him dead," says Abd-el-Atti. " I have this morning some 
conversation with a tradin' boat from the Cataract. Him dead 
shortly after we leave." 

It was the first time it had ever occurred to me that one of 
these tough old Bedaween could die in the ordinary manner. 

But alas his spirit was too powerful for his frame. We have 
not in this case the consolation of feeling that his loss is our 
gain ; for there are plenty more like him at the First Cataract. 
He took money from Aboo Yusef for not taking us up the Cata- 
ract, and he took money from us /"i?/- taking us up. His account 
is balanced. He was an impartial man. Peace to his colored 
ashes. 

Aboo Yusef and the little Jew took leave with increased dem- 
onstrations of affection, and repeated again and again their joy 
that we had ascended the Cataract and returned safe. The Jew, 
as I said, had a furtive look, but Aboo is open as the day. He is 
an Arab you would trust. I can scarcely believe that it was he 
and his partner who sent the bribe to the reis of the Cataract to 
prevent our going up. 

As we ride to town through the new part, the city looks 
exceedingly bright and attractive; the streets are very broad; 
the handsome square houses — ornamented villas, with balco- 
nies, pillared piazzas, painted with lively figures and in 
bizarre patterns — stand behind walls overgrown with the 
convolvulus, and in the midst of gardens; plats in the center 
of open spaces and at the angles of streets are gay with flowers 
in bloom — chiefly scarlet geraniums. The town wears a 
spring aspect, and would be altogether bright but for the 
dust which overlays everything, houses, streets, foliage. No 
amount of irrigation can brighten the dust-powdered trees. 

When we came to Cairo last fall, fresh from European 
cities, it seemed v^ry shabby. Now that we come from Upper 
Egypt, with our eyes trained to eight hundred miles of mud- 
hovels, Cairo is magnificent. But it is Cairo. There are just 
as many people squatting in the dust of the highways as 
when we last saw them, and they have the air of not having 
moved in three months. We ride to Shepherd's Hotel, there 



A QUESTION. 429 



are twenty dragomans for every tourist who wants to go to 
Syria, there is the usual hurry of arrival and departure, and 
no one to be found; we call at the consul's : it is not his hour; 
we ride through the blindest ways to the bankers, in the 
Rosetti Gardens (don't imagine there is any garden there), 
they do no business from twelve to three. It is impossible to 
accomplish anything in Cairo without calm delay. And, 
falling into the mode, we find ourselves sauntering through 
one of the most picturesque quarters, the bazaar of Khan 
Khaleel, feasting the eye on the Oriental spendors of silks, 
embroidered stuffs, stiff with gold and silver, sown with 
pearls, antique Persian brasses, old arms of the followers of 
Saladin. How cool, how quiet it is. All the noises are soft. 
Noises enough there are, a babel of traffic, jostling, pushing, 
clamoring; and yet we have a sense of quiet in it all. There 
is no rudeness, no angularity, no glare of sun. At times you 
feel an underflow of silence. I know no place so convenient 
for meditation as the recesses of these intricate bazaars. 
Their unlikeness to the streets of other cities is mainly in the 
absence of any hard pavement. From the moment you come 
into the Mooskee, you strike a silent way, no noise of wheels 
or hoofs, nor footfalls of the crowd. It is this absence of 
footfall-patter which is always heard in our streets, that gives 
us the impression here of the underflow of silence. 

Returning through the Ezbekeeh Park and through the 
new streets, we are glad we are not to judge the manhood of 
Egypt by the Young Egypt we meet here, nor the future of 
Egypt by the dissolute idlers of Cairo and Alexandria. From 
Cairo to Wady Halfeh we have seen men physically well 
developed, fine specimens of their race, and better in Nubia 
than in Egypt Proper; but these youths are feeble, and of 
unclean appearance, even in their smart European dress. 
They are not unlike the effeminate and gilded youth of Italy 
that one sees in the cities, or Parisians of the same class. 
Egypt, which needed a different importation, has added most 
of the vices of Europe to its own ; it is noticeable that the 
Italians, who emigrate elsewhere little, come here in great 



430 VARIOUS OPINIONS. 

numbers, and men and women alike take kindly to this 
loose feebleness. French as well as Italians adapt them- 
selves easily to Eastern dissoluteness. The French have 
never shown in any part of the globe any prejudice against a 
mingling of races. The mixture here of the youths of the 
Latin races and the worn-out Orientals, who are a little 
polished by a lacquer of European vice, is not a good omen 
for Egypt. Happily such youths are feeble and, I trust, not 
to be found outside the two large cities. 

The great question in Egypt, among foreigners and observ- 
ers (there is no great question among the common people), is 
about the Khedive, Ismail Pasha, his policy and his real inten- 
tions with regard to the country. You will hear three distinct 
opinions ; one from devout Moslems, another from the English, 
and a third from the Americans. The strict and conservative 
Moslems like none of the changes and innovations, and express 
not too much confidence in the Khedive's religion. He has 
bought pictures and statues for his palaces, he has marble 
images of himself, he has set up an equestrian statue in the 
street; all this is contrary to the religion. He introduces 
European manners and costumes, every government employd is 
obliged to wear European dress, except the tarboosh. What 
does he want with such a great army ; why are the taxes so 
high, and growing higher every day ? 

With the Americans in Cairo, as a rule, the Khedive is popu- 
lar; they sympathize with his ambition, and think that he has 
the good of Egypt at heart; almost uniformly they defend him. 
The English, generally, distrust the Khedive and criticise his 
every movement. Scarcely ever have I heard Englishmen 
speak well of the Khedive and his policy. They express a 
want of confidence in the sincerity of his efforts to suppress the 
slave-trade, for one thing. How much the fact that American 
officers are preferred in the Khedive's service has to do with 
the English and the American estimate, I do not know; the 
Americans are naturally preferred over all others, for in case of 
a European complication over Egypt they would have no 
entangling alliances. 



THE KHEDIVE. 43I 



The Americans point to what has actually been accomplished 
by the present Viceroy, the radical improvements in the direc- 
tion of a better civilization, improvements which already change 
the aspect of Egypt to the most casual observer. There are the 
railroads, which intersect the Delta in all directions, and extend 
over two hundred and fifty miles up the Nile, and the adventu- 
rous iron track which is now following the line of the telegraph 
to distant Kartoom. There are the canals, the Sweet-Water 
that runs from Cairo and makes life on the Isthmus possible, 
and the network of irrigating canals and system of ditches, 
which have not only transformed the Delta, but have changed 
its climate, increasing enormously the rainfall. No one who 
has not seen it can have any conception of the magnitude of 
this irrigation by canals which all draw water from the Nile, nor 
of the immense number of laborers necessary to keep the canals 
in repair. Talk of the old Pharaohs, and their magnificent 
canals, projected or constructed, and their vaunted expeditions 
of conquest into Central Africa! Their achievements, take 
them all together, are not comparable to the marvels the Khe- 
dive is producing under our own eyes, in spite of a people 
ignorant, superstitious, reluctant. He does not simply make 
raids into Africa : he occupies vast territories, he has absolutely 
stopped the Nile slave-trade, he has converted the great slave- 
traders into his allies, by making it more their interest to 
develope legitimate commerce than to deal in flesh and blood ; 
he has permanently opened a region twice as large as Egypt to 
commercial intercourse; he sends explorers and scientific expe- 
ditions into the heart of Africa. It is true that he wastes 
money, that he is robbed and cheated by his servants, but he 
perseveres, and behold the results. Egypt is waking out of its 
sleep, it is annexing territory, and population by millions, it is 
becoming a power. And Ismail Pasha is the center and spring 
of the whole movement. 

Look at Cairo ! Since the introduction of gas, the opening 
of broad streets, the tearing down of some of the worst rook- 
eries, the admission of sun and air, Cairo is exempt from the 
old epidemics, the general health is improved, and even that 



432 SOLOMON AND THE VICEROY. 

scourge, ophthalmia, has diminished. You know his decree 
forbidding early marriages; you know he has established and 
encourages schools for girls; you see what General Stone is 
doing in the education of the common soldiers, and in his train- 
ing of those wJio show any aptitude in engineering, draughting^ 
and the scientific accomplishments of the military profession. 

Thus the warmest admirers of the Khedive speak. His des- 
potism, which is now the most absolute in the world, perhaps,, 
and least disputed, is referred to as a "personal government." 
And it is difficult to see how under present circumstances it 
could be anything else. There is absolutely in Egypt no 
material for anything else. The Khedive has annually sum- 
moned for several years, a sort of parliament of the chief men of 
Egypt, for information and consultation. At first it was difficult 
to induce the members to say a word, to give any information 
or utter an opinion. It is a new thing in a despotic govern- 
ment, the shadow even of a parliament. 

An English gentleman in Cairo, and a very intelligent man,, 
gives the Khedive credit for nothing but a selfish desire to 
enrich himself, to establish his own family, and to enjoy the 
traditional pleasures of the Orient. 

"But he is suppressing the slave-trade." 

" He is trying to make England believe so. Slaves still come 
to Cairo ; not so many down the Nile, but by the desert. I 
found a slave-den in some desert tombs once over the other 
side the river; horrible treatment of women and children; a 
caravan came from Darfour by way of Assiout." 

"But that route is cut off by the capture of Darfour." 

" Well, you'll see ; slaves will come if they are wanted. Why, 
look at the Khedive's harem ! " 

" He hasn't so many wives as Solomon, who had seven hun- 
dred; the Khedive has only four." 

" Yes, but he has more concubines ; Solomon kept only three 
hundred, the Khedive has four hundred and fifty, and perhaps 
nearer five hundred. Some of them are beautiful Circassians 
for whom it is said he paid as much as ^2000 and even 
p^3ooo " sterling. 



THE KHEDIVE'S FAMIL Y EXPENSES. 433 

*'I suppose that is an outside price." 

" Of course, but think of the cost of keeping them. Then, 
each of his four wives has her separate palace and establish- 
ment. Rather an expensive family." 

"Almost as costly as the royal family of England." 

"That's another affair; to say nothing of the difference of 
income. The five hundred, more or less, concubines are under 
the charge of the Queen-mother, but they have carte blanche in. 
indulgence in jewels, dress, and all that. They wear the most 
costly Paris modes. They spend enormous sums in pearls and 
diamonds. They have their palaces refurnished whenever the 
whim seizes them, re-decorated in European style. Where 
does the money come from.? You can see that Egypt is taxed 
to death. I heard to-day that the Khedive was paying seven- 
teen per cent, for money, money borrowed to pay the interest 
on his private debts. AVhat does he do with the money he 
raises.? " 

"Spends a good deal of it on his improvements, canals, 
railroads, on his army." 

" I think he runs in debt for his improvements. Look again at 
his family. He has something like forty palaces, costing from 
one half-million to a million dollars each; some of them, which 
he built, he has never occupied, many of them are empty, many 
of those of his predecessors, which would lodge a thousand 
people, are going to decay; and yet he is building new ones 
all the time. There are two or three in process of erection on 
the road to the pyramids." 

" Perhaps they are for his sons or for his high officers .? Victor 
Emanuel, whose treasury is in somewhat the condition of the 
Khedive's, has a palace in every city of Italy, and yet he builds 
more." 

" If the Khedive is building for his children, I give it up. 
He has somewhere between twenty and thirty acknowledged 
children. But he does give away palaces and houses. When 
he has done with a pretty slave, he may give her, with a palace 
or a fine house here in town, to a favorite officer. I can show 
you houses here that were taken away from their owners, at a 
28 



434: ANOTHER JOSEPH. 



price fixed by the Khedive and not by the owner, because the 
Viceroy wanted them to give away with one or another of his 
concubines. " 

"I suppose that is Oriental custom." 

" I thought you Americans defended the Khedive on account 
of his progressive spirit." 

*' He is a man who is accomplishing wonders, trammelled as 
he is by usages thousands of years old, which appear mons- 
trous to us, but are to him as natural as any other Oriental 
condition. Yet I confess that he stands in very contradictory 
lights. If he knew it, he could do the greatest service to 
Egypt by abolishing his harem of concubines, converting it 
into — I don't know what — a convent, or a boarding-school, or 
a milliner's shop, or an establishment for canning fruit — and 
then set the example of living, openly, with one wife." 

"Wait till he does. And you talk about the condition of 
Egypt! Every palm-tree, and every sakiya is taxed, and 
the tax has doubled within a few years. The taxes are now 
from one pound and a half to three pounds an acre on all 
lands not owned by him." . 

" In many cases, I know this is not a high tax (compared 
with taxes elsewhere) considering the yield of the land, and 
the enormous cost of the irrigating canals." 

" It is high for such managers as the fellahs. But they will 
not have to complain long. The Khedive is getting into his 
own hands all the lands of Egypt. He owns I think a third 
of it now, and probably half of it is in his family; and this is 
much the better land." 

" History repeats itself in Egypt. He is following the exam- 
ple of Joseph who, you know, taking advantage of the 
famine, wrung all the land, except that in possession of the 
priests, from the people, and made it over to Pharaoh; by 
Joseph's management the king owned, before the famine was 
over, not only all the land, but all the money, all the cattle, 
and all the people of Egypt. And he let the land to them for 
a fifth of its increase." 

" I don't know that it is any better because Egypt is used to 
it. Joseph was a Jew. The Khedive pretends to be influenced 



PERSONAL GOVERNMENT. 435 

by the highest motives, the elevation of the condition of the 
people, the regeneration of Egypt." 

" I think he is sincerely trying to improve Egypt and the 
Egyptians. Of course a despot, reared in Oriental prejudices, 
is slow to see that you can't make a nation except by making 
men; that you can't make a rich nation unless individuals 
have free scope to accumulate property. I confess that the 
chief complaint I heard up the river was, that no one dared to 
show that he had any money, or to engage in extensive 
business, for fear he would be " squeezed.' " 

"So he would be. The Khedive has some sixteen sugar- 
factories, worked by forced labor, very poorly paid. They 
ought to be very profitable." 

*' They are not." 

" Well, he wants more money, at any rate. I have just heard 
that he is resorting to a forced loan, in the form of bonds. 
A land-owner is required to buy them in the proportion 
of one dollar and a half for each acre he owns; and he is to 
receive seven per cent, interest on the bonds. In Cairo a 
person is required to take these bonds in a certain proportion 
on his personal property. And it is said that the bonds are 
not transferable, and that they will be worthless to the heirs. 
I heard of this new dodge from a Copt." 

"I suppose the Khedive's friends would say that he is 
trying to change Egypt in a day, whereas it is the work of 
generations." 

When we returned to the dahabeeh we had a specimen of 
"personal government." Abd-el-Atti was standing on the 
deck, slipping his beads, and looking down. 

" What has happened .? " 

"Ahman, been took him." 

" Who took him ? " 

" Police, been grab him first time he go 'shore, and lock 
him up." 

" What had he been doing.? " 

"Nothing he been done; I send him uptown of errand; 
police catch him right out there." 

" What for ? " 



436 THE DOCK A T CAIRO. 

" Take him down to Soudan to work ; the vice-royal he 
issue an order for the police to catch all the black fellows in 
Cairo, and take 'em to the Soudan, down to Gondokora for 
what I know, to work the land there." 

"But Ahman is pur servant; he can't be seized." 

" Oh, I know, Ahman belong to me, he was my slave till I 
give him liberty ; I go to get him out directly. These people 
know me, I get him off." 

" But if you had no influence with the police, Ahman would 
be draofged off to Soudan to work in a cotton or rice field? " 

" Lots of black fellows like him sent off. But I get him 
back, don't you have worry. What the vice-royal to do with 
my servant — I don't care if he Kin' of Constantinople ! " 

Sure enough, early in the evening the handsome Abyssinian 
boy came back, none the worse, except for a thorough scare, 
eyes and teeth shining, and bursting into his usual hearty 
laugh upon allusion to his capture. 

« Police tyeb ? " 

^^ Moosh-tyeb" ("bad"), with an explosion of merriment. 

The boy hadn't given himself much uneasiness, for he regards 
his master as his Providence. 

We are moored at the dock and below the lock of the Sweet- 
Water Canal which runs to Ismailia. A dredge-boat lies in the 
entrance, and we have an opportunity of seeing how government 
labor is performed ; we can understand why it is that so many 
laborers are needed, and that the great present want of Egypt is 
stout and willing arms. 

In the entrance of the canal and in front of the lock is a flat- 
boat upon which are fifteen men. They have two iron scoops, 
which would hold about a gallon each ; to each is attached a 
long pole and a rope. Two men jab the pole down and hold the 
pot on the bottom, while half a dozen pull leisurely on the rope, 
with a '"'' yah-sah " or others chorus, and haul in the load ; when 
it comes up, a man scrapes out the mud with his hand, sometimes 
not getting more than two quarts. It is very restful to watch 
their unexhausting toil. It takes several minutes to capture a 
pot of sand. There are fifteen men at this spoon-work, but one 



RAISING MUD. 437 



scoop is only kept going at a time. After it is emptied, the men 
stop and look about, converse a little, and get ready for another 
effort, standing meantime in liquid mud, ankle deep. When 
they have rested, over goes the scoop again, and the men stand 
to the rope, and pull feebly, but only at intervals, that is when 
they sing the response to the line of the leader. The programme 
of singing and putting is something like this : 

Salee ah nadd (voice of the leader). 

Yalee, halee (chorus, pull altogether). 

Salee ah nadd. 

Yalee, halee (pull). 

Salee ah nadd. 

Yaleei halee (pull). 

And the outcome of three or four minutes of hauling and noise 
enough to raise a ton, is about a quart of mud ! 

The river panorama is always varied and entertaining, and we 
are of a divided mind between a lazy inclination to sit here and 
watch the busy idleness of the population, or address ourselves 
to the much that still remains to be seen in Cairo. I ought to 
speak, however, of an American sensation on the river. This is 
a little steam-yacht — fifty feet long by seven and a half broad — 
which we saw up the Nile, where it attracted more attention 
along the banks than anything else this season. I call it Amer- 
ican, because it carries the American flag and is owned by a 
New-York art student, Mr. Anderson, and an English-American, 
Mr. Medler ; but the yacht was built in London, and shipped on 
a large steamboat to Alexandria. It is the first steam-vessel, I 
believe, carrying anything except Egyptian (or Turkish) colors 
that has ever been permitted to ascend the Nile. We took a 
trip on it one fine morning up to Helwan, and enjoyed the ani- 
mation Of its saucy speed. When put to its best, it makes 
eighteen miles an hour ; but life would not be as long on it as it 
is on a dahabeeh. At Helwan are some hot sulphur-springs, 
famous and much resorted to in the days of the Pharaohs, and 
just now becoming fashionable again. 

Our days pass we can hardly say how, while we wait for the 
proper season for Syria, and regard the invincible obstacles that 



4-38 POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 



debar us from the longed-for desert journey to Sinai and Arabia 
Petra. The bazaars are always a refuge from the heat, a never- 
failing entertainment. We spend hours in lounging through 
them. We lunch at the shops of the sweatmeat makers, on 
bread, pistachio-nuts, conserve of roses, I know not what, and 
Nile-water, with fingans of coffee fetched hot and creamy from 
the shop near by. We give a copper to an occasional beggar : 
for beggars are few in the street, and these are either blind 
or very poor, or derweeshes ; and to all these, being regarded as 
Allah's poor, the Moslems give cheerfully, for charity is a part 
of their religion. We like also to stand at the doors of the 
artisans. There is a street where all the workmen are still 
making the old flint-lock guns and pistols, and the firearms with 
the flaring blunderbuss muzzles, as if the object was to scatter 
the charge, and hit a great many people but to kill none. I 
think the peace society would do well to encourage this kind 
of gun. There are shops also where a man sits before a heap of 
flint-chalk, chipping the stone with a flat iron mallet, and forming 
the flints for the antiquated locks. 

We happen to com.e often in our wanderings, the distinction 
being a matter of luck, upon a very interesting old city-gate of 
one of the quarters. The gate itself is a wooden one of two 
leaves, crossed with iron bands fastened with heavy spikes, and 
not remarkable except as an illustration of one of the popular 
superstitions of the Arabs, The wood is driven full of nails, bits 
of rags flutter on it, and human teeth are crowded under the 
iron bands. It is believed that if a person afiiicted with head- 
ache will drive a nail into this door he will never have the head- 
ache again. Other ills are relieved by other offerings, bits of 
rag, teeth, etc. It would seem to be a pretty sure cure for 
toothache to leave the tooth in this gate. The Arabs are called 
the most superstitious of peoples, they wear charms against the 
evil-eye (" charm from the eye of girl, sharper than a spike ; charm 
from the eye of boy, more painful than a whip "), and they have 
a thousand absurd practices. Yet we can match most of them in 
Christian communities. 

How patiently all the people work, and wait. Complaints are 



LEA VE- TA KING. 439 



rare. The only reproof I ever received was from a donkey-boy, 
whom I had kept Availing late one evening at the Hotel Nil. 
When I roused him from his sleep on the ground, he asked, 
with an accent of weariness, " how much clock you got ? " 

By the twenty-third day of March it is getting warm ; the 
thermometer is 81". It is not simply the heat, but the Khdma- 
seen, the south wind, the smoky air, the dust in the city, the 
languor. To-day it rained a few drops, and looked threatening, 
just as it does in a hot summer day at home. The outskirts of 
Cairo are enveloped in dust, and the heat begins to simmer over 
the palaces and gardens. The travelers are leaving. The sharp 
traders, Jews from Bagdad, Syrians, Jews from Constantinople, 
Greeks, Armenians from Damascus, all sorts, are packing up 
their goods, in order to meet the traveler and fleece him again in 
Jerusalem, in Beyrout, in Damascus, in Smyrna, on the Golden 
Horn. In the outskirts, especially on the open grounds by the 
canal, are the coffee-booths and dance-shanties — rows of the dis- 
reputable. The life, always out of doors even in the winter, is 
now more flamboyantly displayed in these open and verandahed 
dwellings ; there is a yielding to the relaxation of summer. We 
hear at night, as we sit on the deck of our dahabeeh, the throb- 
bing of the darabookah-drum and the monotonous song of the 
dissolute ones. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



THE WOODEN MAN. 



THE Khedive and his court, if it may be so called, are not 
hedged in by any formidable barriers ; but there are pecu- 
liarities of etiquette. When his Highness gives a grand 
ball and public reception, of course only the male members of 
his household are present, only the men of the Egyptian society; 
it would in fact be a male assembly but for the foreign ladies 
visiting or residing in the city. Of course there cannot be any 
such thing as " society " under such circumstances ; and as there 
are no women to regulate the ball invitations, the assembly is 
"mixed." There is no such thing as reciprocity with the Arabs 
and Turks ; they are willing to meet the wives or the female 
friends of all foreigners ; they never show their own. 

If a lady visiting Cairo wishes to visit one of the royal harems, 
it is necessary that her husband or some gentleman of her party, 
should first be presented to the Khedive. After this ceremony, 
notice is received through the chamberlain of the Viceroy that the 
lady will be received on such a day and hour, in a palace named, 
by her Highness So So. Which Highness } That you can never 
tell before the notice is received. It is a matter of royal con- 
venience at the time. Inafamily so large and varied as that of the 
Khedive, you can only be presented to a fragment of it. You 
may be received by one of his wives ; it may please the Queen- 
mother, who is in charge of his largest harem, to do the honors ; 
or the wife of the heir-apparent, or of one of the younger sons, may 
open her doors to you. I suppose it is a good deal a matter of 
whim with the inmates of the harem ; sometimes they are tired 
of seeing strangers and of dressing for them. Usually they are 

440 



A RECEPTION. 44I 



eager to break the monotony of their lives with a visit that 
promises to show them a new costume. There is only one con- 
dition made as to the dress of the lady who is to be received at 
a royal harem ; she must not wear black, there is a superstition 
connected with a black dress, it puts the inmates of the harem 
in low spirits. Gentlemen presented to the Khedive wear the 
usual evening dress. 

The Khedive's winter-residence is the Palace of Abdeen, not 
far from the Ezbekeeh, and it was there that Dr. Lamborn and 
myself were presented to his highness by Mr. Beardsley, our 
consul-general. Nothing regal could be more simple or less 
ceremonious. We arrived at the door at the moment fixed, for 
the Khedive is a man of promptness and I imagine has his entire 
day parcelled out in engagements. We first entered a spacious 
entrance-hall, from which a broad stairway leads to the first story; 
here were thirty or forty janizaries, gentlemen-in-waiting, and 
eunuchs, standing motionless, at the sides, and guarding the 
approach to the stairway, in reception attitudes. Here we were 
received by an attendant who conducted us to a room on the 
left, where we were introduced to the chamberlain, and deposited 
our outer coats and hats. The chamberlain then led us to the 
foot of the stairs, but accompanied us no further ; we ascended 
to the first landing, and turning to another broad stairway saw 
the Khedive awaiting us at the head of it. He was unattended ; 
indeed we saw no officer or servant on this floor. The furniture 
above and below was European, except the rich, thick carpets 
of Turkey and Persia. 

His Highness, who wore a dress altogether European except 
the fez, received us cordially, shaking hands and speaking with 
simplicity, as a private gentleman might, and, wasting no time in 
Oriental compliments, led the way to a small reception-room 
furnished in blue satin. We were seated together in a corner 
of the apartment, and an animated talk at once began. Dr. 
Lamborn's special errand was to ascertain whether Egypt would 
be represented in our Centennial, about which the Khedive was 
well informed. The conversation then passed to the material 
condition of Egypt, the development of its resources, its canals 



442 HIS HIGHNESS A T HOME. 

and railroads, and especially the new road into Soudan, and the 
opening of Darfour. The Khedive listened attentively to any 
practical information, either about railroads, factories, or agricul- 
ture, that my companion was able to give him, and had the air 
of a man eager to seize any idea that might be for the advance- 
ment of Egypt ; when he himself spoke, it was with vivacity, 
shrewdness, and good sense. And he is not without a gleam of 
humor now and then, — a very hopeful quality in a sovereign and 
especially in an Oriental ruler. 

The Khedive, in short, is a person to inspire confidence; he 
appears to be an able, energetic man of affairs, quick and reso- 
lute ; there is not the slightest stiffness or " divine right " pretence 
in his manner. He is short, perhaps five feet seven or eight 
inches in height, and stout. He has a well-proportioned, solid 
head, good features, light complexion, and a heavy, strong jaw, 
which his closely-trimmed beard does not conceal. I am not 
sure that the penetration of his glance does not gain a little from a 
slight defect in one eye — the result of ophthalmia in his boyhood. 

When the interview had lasted about fifteen minutes, the 
Khedive ended it by rising ; at the head of the stairs we shook 
hands and exchanged the proper speeches; at the bottom of the 
first flight we turned and bowed, his highness still standing 
and bowing, and then we saw him no more. As we passed out 
an order had come from above which set the whole household in 
a flurry of preparation, a running hither and thither as for speedy 
departure — the sort of haste that is mingled with fear, as for the 
command of a power that will not brook an instant's delay. 

Exaggerated notions are current about harems and harem- 
receptions, notions born partly of the seclusion of the female 
portion of the household in the East. Of course the majority of 
harems in Egypt are simply the apartment of the one wife and 
her children. The lady who enters one of them pays an ordin- 
ary call, and finds no mystery whatever. If there is more than 
one wife, a privileged visitor, able to converse with the inmates, 
might find some skeletons behind the screened windows. It is 
also true that a foreign lady may enter one of the royal harems 
and be received with scarcely more ceremony than would attend 



LADIES OF THE HAREM. 443 



an ordinary call at home. The receptions at wh.eh there .3 
great drsplay, at which crowds of beautiful or ugly slaves Ime 
L apartments, at which there is music and danctng by almehs, 
an endless service of sweets and pipes and coffee, and a do.eir 
changes of dress by the hostess during the ceremony, are not 
frequent, are for some special occasion, the celebratton of a 
marriage, or the entertainment of a vrsttor of high rank. One 
who e'pects, upon a royal invitation to the harem to wander 
Lo the populous dove-cote of the Khedive, where languish the 
beau ies of Asia, the sisters from the Gardens of Gul, p.nmg 
for a new robe of the mode from Paris, will be most cruelly d,s- 

''TutTharem remains a harem, in the imagination. The ladies 
went one day to thehouse-I suppose it is aharem-of Hussein, 
T.I.. who has served us with unremitting f eUty a"d dever- 
ness The house was one of the ordinary sort of unburnt brick, 
V ry humble, but perfectly tidy and bright. The secret of its 
cheerfulness was in a nice, cheery, happy ''"'e "ife, who mad 
a home for Hussein such as it was a pleasure to see m Egypt 
They had four children, the eldest a daughter, twelve years old 
and very good-mannered and pretty. As she was of marriage- 
able age^herparentswerebeginningtothinkofsetthngherin life. 

"What a nice girl she is, Hussein," says Madame. 
"Yes'm," says Hussein, waving his hands in his usua 
struggle ;ith the English language, and uttering the longest 
speech ever heard from him in that tongue, but still speaking 
Sf about something at table, " yes'm ; good -an have it; 
bad man, drinkin' man, smokin' man, eatin man not have t^ 
I will describe briefly two royal presentations, one to the 
favorite wife of the Khedive, the other to the wife of Moham- 
mldTufik Pasha, the eldest son and heir-apparent according 
To the late revolution in the rules of descent French, the 
court language, is spoken not only by the Khedive but baU 
the ladies of his family who receive foreigners. The lady who 
was presented to the Khedive's wife, after passing the usual 
guard of eunuchs in the palace, was escorted through a long 
fTite of showy apartments. In each one she was introduced 



444 "THE WIFE OF TUFIK PASHA. 

to a maid of honor who escorted her to the next, each lady-in- 
waiting being more richly attired than her predecessor, and 
the lady was always thinking that now this one must be the 
princess herself. Female slaves were in every room, and a 
great number of them waited in the hall where the princess 
received her visitor. She was a strikingly handsome woman, 
dressed in pink satin and encrusted with diamonds. The 
conversation consisted chiefly of the most exaggerated and 
barefaced compliments on both sides, both as to articles of 
apparel and personal appearance. Coffee, cigarettes, and 
sweets without end, in cups of gold set with precious stones, 
were served by the female slaves. The wife was evidently 
delighted with the impression made by her beauty, her jewels, 
and her rich dress. 

The wife of Tufik Pasha received at one of the palaces in 
the suburbs. At the door eunuchs were in waiting to conduct 
the visitors up the flight of marble steps, and to deliver them 
to female slaves in waiting. Passing up several broad stair- 
ways, they were ushered into a grand reception-hall furnished 
in European style, except the divans. Only a few servants 
were in attendance, and they were white female slaves. The 
princess is petite, pretty, intelligent, and attractive. She 
received her visitors with entire simplicity, and without 
ceremony, as a lady would receive callers in America. The 
conversation ran on the opera, the travel on the Nile, and 
topics of the town. Coffee and cigarettes were offered, and 
the sensible interview ended like an occidental visit. It is a 
little disenchanting, all this adoption of European customs; 
but the wife of Tufik Pasha should ask him to go a little 
little further, and send all the eunuchs out of the palace. 

We had believed that summer was come. But we learned 
that March in Cairo is, like the same month the world over, 
treacherous. The morning of the twenty-sixth was cold, the 
thermometer 60°. A north wind began to blow, and by 
afternoon increased to a gale, such as had not been known 
here for years. The town was enveloped in a whirlwind of 
sand ; everything loose was shaking and flying ; it was impos- 
sible to see one's way, and people scudding about the streets 



THE MUMMY CONSIDERED. 445, 

with their heads drawn under their robes continually dashed 
into each other. The sun was wholly hidden. From our 
boat we could see only a few rods over the turbulent river. 
The air was so thick with sand, that it had the appearance of 
a yellow canvass. The desert had invaded the air — that was 
all. The effect of the light through this was extremely 
weird; not like a dark day of clouds and storm in New 
England, but a pale, yellowish, greenish, phantasmagoric 
light, which seemed to presage calamity. Such a light as 
may be at the Judgment Day. Cairo friends who dined with 
us said they had never seen such a day in Egypt. Dahabeehs 
were torn from their moorings; trees were blown down in 
the Ezbekeeh Gardens. 

We spent the day, as we had spent other days, in the 
Museum of Antiquities at Boulak. This wonderful collection, 
which is the work of Mariette Bey, had a thousand times 
more interest for us now than before we made the Nile 
voyage and acquired some knowledge of ancient Egypt 
through its monuments. Everything that we saw had mean- 
ing — statues, mummy-cases, images, scarabaei, seals, stelae, gold 
jewelry, and the simple articles in domestic use. 

It must be confessed that to a person uninformed about 
Egypt and unaccustomed to its ancient art, there is nothing 
in the world so dreary as a collection of its antiquities. The 
endless repetition of designs, the unyielding rigidity of forms, 
the hideous mingling of the human and the bestial, the dead 
formality, are insufferably wearisome. The mummy is tho- 
roughly disagreeeable. You can easily hate him and all his 
belongings; there is an air of infinite conceit about him; I 
feel it in the exclusive box in which he stands, in the smirk 
of his face painted on his case. I wonder if it is the perk- 
ishness of immortality — as if his race alone were immortal. 
His very calmness, like that of so many of the statues he 
made, is an offensive contempt. It is no doubt unreasonable, 
but as a living person I resent this intrusion of a preserved 
dead person into our warm times, — an appearance anachronistic • 
and repellant. 



446 DISCOVERIES OF MARIETTE BEY, 

But as an illustration of Egyptian customs, art, and history, 
the Boulak museum is almost a fascinating place. True it is not 
so rich in many respects as some European collections of 
Egyptian antiquities, but it has some objects that are unique; 
for instance, the jewels of Queen Aah-hotep, a few statues, and 
some stelse, which furnish the most important information. 

This is not the place, had I the knowledge, to enter upon any 
discussion of the antiquity of these monuments or of Egyptian 
chronology. I believe I am not mistaken, however, in saying 
that the discoveries of Mariette Bey tend strongly to establish 
the credit of the long undervalued list of Egyptian sovereigns 
made by Manetho, and that many Oriental scholars agree with 
the directors of this museum that the date of the first Egyptian 
dynasty is about five thousand years before the Christian era. 
But the almost startling thought presented by this collection is 
not in the antiquity of some of these objects, but in the long 
civilization anterior to their production, and which must have 
been necessary to the growth of the art here exhibited. 

It could not have been a barbarous people who produced, for 
instance, these life-like images found at Maydoom, statues of a 
prince and princess who lived under the ancient king Snefrou, 
the last sovereign of the third dynasty, and the predecessor of 
Cheops. At no epoch, says M. Mariette, did Egypt produce 
portraits more speaking, though they want the breadth of style 
of the statue in wood — of which more anon. But it is as much 
in an ethnographic as an art view that these statues are 
important. If the Egyptian race at that epoch was of the type 
offered by these portraits, it resembled in nothing the race 
which inhabited the north of Egypt not many years after 
Snefrou. To comprehend the problem here presented we have 
only to compare the features of these statues with those of 
others in this collection belonging to the fourth and fifth 
dynasties. 

The best work of art in the Museum is the statue of Chephron, 
the builder of the second pyramid. "The epoch of Cheph- 
ron," says M. Mariette, "corresponding to the third reign of 
the fourth dynasty of Manetho, our statue is not less than six 



THE WOODEN MAN. 447 



thousand years old." It is a life-size sitting figure, executed in 
red granite. We admire its tranquil majesty, we marvel at the 
close study of nature in the moulding of the breast and limbs, 
we confess the skill that could produce an effect so fine in such 
intractable material. It seems as if Egyptian art were about to 
burst its trammels. But it never did; it never exceeded this 
cleverness ; on the contrary it constantly fell away from it. 

The most interesting statue to us, and perhaps the oldest 
image in Egypt, and, if so, in the world, is the Wooden Man, 
which was found at Memphis. This image, one metre and ten 
centimetres high, stands erect, holding a staff. The figure is 
full of life, the pose expresses vigor, action, pride, the head, 
round in form, indicates intellect. The eyes are crystal, in a 
setting of bronze, giving a startling look of life to the regard. It 
is no doubt a portrait. "There is nothing more striking," says 
its discoverer, " than this image, in a manner living, of a person 
who has been dead six thousand years." He must have been a 
man of mark, and a citizen of a state well-civilized ; this is not 
the portrait of a barbarian, nor was it carved by a rude artist. 
Few artists, I think, have lived since, who could impart more 
vitality to wood. 

And if the date assigned to this statue is correct, sculpture in 
Egypt attained its maximum of development six thousand years 
ago. This conclusion will be resisted by many, and on differ- 
ent grounds. I heard a clergyman of the Church of England 
say to his comrade, as they were looking at this figure : — 

"It's all nonsense; six thousand years! It couldn't be. 
That's before the creation of man." 

"Well," said the other, irreverently, "perhaps this was the 
model." 

This museum is for the historian, the archaeologist, not for the 
artist, except in his study of the history of art. What Egypt 
had to impart to the world of art was given thousands of years 
ago — intimations, suggestions, outlines that, in freer circum- 
stances, expanded into works of immortal beauty. The highest 
beauty, that last touch of genius, that creative inspiration which 
is genius and not mere talent, Egyptian art never attained. It 



448 EGYPT AND GREECE COMPARED. 

achieved wonders ; they are all mediocre wonders ; miracles of 
talent. The architecture profoundly impresses, almost crushes 
one ; it never touches the highest in the soul, it never charms, it 
never satisfies. 

The total impression upon myself of this ancient architecture 
and this plastic art is a melancholy one. And I think this is 
not altogether due to its monotony. The Egyptian art is said 
to be sui generis; it has a character that is instantly recognized; 
whenever and wherever we see a specimen of it, we say without 
fear of mistake, " that is Egyptian." We are as sure of it as we 
are of a piece of Greek work of the best age, perhaps surer. Is 
Egyptian art, then, elevated to the dignity of a type, of itself.'' 
Is it so to be studied, as something which has flowered into a 
perfection of its kind } I know we are accustomed to look at it 
as if it were, and to set it apart ; in short, I have heard it judged 
absolutely, as if it were a rule to itself. I cannot bring myself 
so to look at it. All art is one. We recognize peculiarities of 
an age or of a people ; but there is only one absolute standard ; 
to that touchstone all must come. 

It seems to me then that the melancholy impression produced 
by Eg5rptian art is not alone from its monotony, its rigidity, 
its stiff formality, but it is because we recognize in it an 
arrested development. It is archaic. The peculiarity of it is 
that it always remained archaic. We have seen specimens of 
the earliest Etruscan figure-drawing. Gen, Cesnola found in 
Cyprus Phoenician work, and we have statues of an earlier 
period of Greek sculpture, all of which more or less resemble 
Egyptian art. The latter are the beginnings of a consummate 
development. Egypt stopped at the beginnings. And we 
have the sad spectacle of an archaic art, not growing, but 
elaborated into a fixed type and adhered to as if it were per- 
fection. In some of the figures I have spoken of in this 
museum, you can find that art was about to emancipate itself. 
In all later works you see no such effort, no such tendency, 
no such hope. It had been abandoned. By and by impulse 
died out entirely. For thousands of years the Egyptians 
worked at perfecting the mediocre. Many attribute this remote 



LEARNED OPINIONS. 449 

and total repression to religious influence. Something of the 
same sort may be seen in the paintings of saints in the Greek 
chambers of the East to-day; the type of which is that of the 
Byzantine period. Are we to attribute a like arrest of devel- 
opment in China to the same cause ? 

It is a theory very plausibly sustained, that the art of a 
people is the flower of its civilization, the final expression of 
the conditions of its growth and its character. In reading Mr, 
Taine's ingenious observations upon art in the Netherlands 
and art in Greece, we are ready to assent to the theory. It 
may be the general law of a free development in national life 
and in art. If it is, then it is not disturbed by the example of 
-^gypt* Egyptian art is not the expression of the natural char- 
acter, for its art was never developed. The Egyptians were a 
joyous race, given to mirth, to the dance, to entertainments, to 
the charms of society, a people rather gay than grave ; they lived 
in the open air, in the most friendly climate in the world. The 
sculptures in the early tombs represent their life — an exis- 
tence full of gaiety, grace, humor. This natural character is 
not expressed in the sombre temples, nor in their symbolic 
carvings, nor in these serious, rigid statues, whose calm faces 
look straight on as if into eternity. This art may express the 
religion of the priestly caste ; when it had attained the power 
to portray the rigid expectation of immortality, the inscru- 
table repose of the Sphinx, it was arrested there, and never 
allowed in any respect to change its formality. And I cannot 
but believe that if it had been free, Egyptian art would have 
budded and bloomed into a grace of form in harmony with 
the character of the climate and the people. 

It is true that the architecture of Egypt was freer than its 
sculptures, but the whole of it together is not worth one edifice 
like the Greek temple at Paestum. And to end, by what may 
seem a sweeping statement, I have had more pleasure from 
a bit of Greek work — an intaglio, or a coin of the best period, or 
the sculptures on a broken entablature — than from anything 
that Egypt ever produced in art. 
29 





^^^^^ 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



ON THE WAY HOME. 



FOR two days after the sand-storm, it gives us pleasure to 
write, the weather was cold, raw, thoroughly unpleasant, 
resembling dear New England quite enough to make one 
homesick. As late as the twenty-eighth of March, this was. 
The fact may be a comfort to those who dwell in a region 
where winter takes a fresh hold in March. 

We broke up our establishment on the dahabeeh and moved 
to the hotel, abandoning I know not how many curiosities, 
antiquities and specimens, the possession of which had once 
seemed to us of the last importance. I shall spare you the 
scene at parting with our crew. It would have been very 
touching, but for the backsheesh. Some of them were faithful 
fellows to whom we were attached ; some of them were grace- 
less scamps. But they all received backsheesh. That is 
always the way. It was clearly understood that we should 
reward only the deserving, and we had again and again 
resolved not to give a piastre to certain ones of the crew. 
But, at the end, the obdurate howadji always softens; and the 
Egyptians know that he will. Egypt is full of good-for- 
nothings who have not only received presents but certificates 
of character from travelers whom they have disobliged for three 
months. There was, however, some discrimination in this case ; 
backsheesh was distributed with some regard to good conduct ; 
at the formal judgment on deck, Abd-el-Atti acted the part 
of Thoth in weighing out the portions, and my friend took 
the role of Osiris, receiving, vicariously for all of us, the kisses 

450 



THE BA THS IN CAIRO. 45I 



on his hand of the grateful crew. I shall not be misunder- 
stood in saying that the faithful Soudan boy, Gohah, wonld 
have felt just as much grief in bidding us good-bye if he had 
not received a penny (the rest of the crew would have been 
inconsolable in like case) ; his service was always marked by 
an affectionate devotion without any thought of reward. He 
must have had a magnanimous soul to forgive us for the doses 
we gave him when he was ill during the voyage. 

We are waiting in Cairo professedly for the weather to 
become settled and pleasant in Syria — which does not hap- 
pen, one year with another, till after the first of April ; but 
we are contented, for the novelties of the town are inexhaust- 
ible, and we are never weary of its animation and picturesque 
movement. I suppose I should be held in low estimation if I 
said nothing concerning the baths of Cairo. It is expected 
of every traveler that he will describe them, or one at least — 
one is usually sufficient. Indeed when I have read these 
descriptions, I have wondered how the writers lived to tell 
their story. When a person has been for hours roasted and 
stifled, and had all his bones broken, you could not rea- 
sonably expect him to write so powerfully of the bath as 
many travelers write who are so treated. I think these bath 
descriptions are among the marvels of Oriental literature; 
Mr. Longfellow says of the Roman Catholic system, that it is 
a religion of the deepest dungeons and the highest towers ; 
the Oriental bath (in literature) is like this; the unwashed 
infidel is first plunged in a gulf of dark despair, and then he 
is elevated to a physical bliss that is ecstatic. The story is 
too long at each end. 

I had experience of several different baths in Cairo, and I 
invariably found them less vigorous, that is milder in treat- 
ment, than the Turkish baths of New York or of Germany. 
With the Orientals the bath is a luxury, a thing to be enjoyed, 
and not an affair of extreme shocks and brutal surprises. In 
the bath itself there is never the excessive heat that I have 
experienced in such baths in New York, nor the sudden 
change of temperature in water, nor the vigorous manipu- 



452 CURIOUS MODE OF EXECUTION. 

lation. The Cairo bath, in my experience, is gentle, moderate, 
enjoyable. The heat of the rooms is never excessive, the air 
is very moist, and water flows abundantly over the marble 
floors; the attendants are apt to be too lazy to maltreat the 
bather, and perhaps err in gentleness. You are never roasted 
in a dry air and then plunged suddenly into cold water. I do 
not wonder that the Orientals are fond of their bath. The 
baths abound, for men and for women, and the natives pay a 
very small sum for the privilege of using them. Women 
make up parties, and spend a good part of the day in a bath ; 
having an entertainment there sometimes, and a frolic. It is 
said that mothers sometimes choose wives for their sons from 
girls they see at the baths. Some of them are used by men 
in the forenoon and by women in the afternoon, and I have 
seen a great crowd of veiled women waiting at the door at 
noon. There must be over seventy-five of these public baths 
in Cairo. 

As the harem had not yet gone over to the Gezeereh palace, 
we took the opportunity to visit it. This palace was built by 
the Khedive, on what was the island of Gezeereh, when a 
branch of the Nile was suffered to run to the west of its 
present area. The ground is now the seat of gardens, and of 
the most interesting botanical and horticultural experiments 
on the part of the Khedive, under charge of competent 
scientific men. A botanist or an arboriculturist would find 
material in the nurseries for long study. I was chiefly 
interested (since I half believe in the malevolence of some 
plants) in a sort of murderous East Indian cane, which grows 
about fifteen to twenty feet high, and so rapidly that (we 
were told) it attains its growth in a day or two. At any rate, 
it thrusts up its stalks so vigorously and rapidly that Indian 
tyrants have employed it to execute criminals. The victim is 
bound to the ground over a bed of this cane at night, and in 
the morning it has grown up through his body. We need 
such a vengeful vegetable as this in our country, to plant 
round the edges of our city gardens. 

The grounds about the palace are prettily, but formally 



FRANKLIN IN EGYPT. 453 



laid out in flower-gardens, with fountains and a kiosk in the 
style of the Alhambra. Near by is a hot-house, with one of 
the best collections of orchids in the world ; and not far off is 
the zoological garden, containing a menagerie of African 
birds and beasts, very well arranged and said to be nearly- 
complete. 

The palace is a square building of iron and stucco, the 
light pillars and piazzas painted in Saracenic designs and 
Persian colors, but the whole rather dingy, and beginning to 
be shabby. Inside it is at once a showy and a comfortable 
palace, and much better than we expected to see in Egypt ; 
the carpenter and mason work are, however, badly done, as if 
the Khedive had been swindled by sharp Europeans; it is 
full of rich and costly furniture. The rooms are large and 
effective, and we saw a good deal of splendor in hangings and 
curtains, especially in the apartments fitted up for the occu- 
pation of the Empress Eugenie. It is wonderful, by the way, 
with what interest people look at a bed in which an Empress 
has slept; and we may add awe, for it is usually a broad, 
high and awful place of repose. Scattered about the rooms 
are, in defiance of the Prophet's religion, several paintings, 
all inferior, and a few busts (some of the Khedive) and other 
pieces of statuary. The place of honor is given to an Amer- 
ican subject, although the group was executed by an Italian 
artist. It stands upon the first landing of the great staircase. 
An impish-looking young Jupiter is seated on top of a 
chimney, below which is the suggestion of a house-roof. 
Above his head is the point of a lightning-rod. The celestial 
electrician is discharging a bolt into the rod, which is sup- 
posed to pass harmless over the roof below. Upon the 
pedestal is a medallion, the head of Benjamin Franklin, and 
encircling it, the legend: — Eripuit coelo fuhnen. 1750. The 
group looks better than you would imagine from the descrip- 
tion. 

Beyond the garden is the harem-building, which was 
undergoing a thorough renovation and refurnishing, in the 
most gaudy French style — such being the wish of tiie ladies 



454 HELIOPOLIS. 



who occupy it. They are eager to discard the beautiful 
Moorish designs which once covered the walls and to sub- 
stitute French decoration. The dormitory portions consist 
of passages with rooms on each side, very much like a young 
ladies' boarding-school ; the rooms are large enough to 
accommodate three or four occupants. While we were leis- 
urely strolling through the house, we noticed a great flurry 
and scurry in the building, and the attendants came to us in 
a panic, and made desperate efforts to hurry us out of the 
building by a side-entrance, giving signs of woe and destruc- 
tion to themselves if we did not flee. The Khedive had 
arrived, on horseback, and unexpectedly, to inspect his 
domestic hearths. 

We rode, one sparkling morning, after a night of heavy rain, 
to Heliopolis ; there was no mud, however, the rain having 
served to beat the sand firm. Heliopolis is the On of the 
Bible, and in the time of Herodotus, its inhabitants were es- 
teemed the most learned in history of all the Egyptians. The 
father-in-law of Joseph was a priest there, and there Moses and 
Plato both learned wisdom. The road is excellent and 
planted most of the distance with acacia trees; there are 
extensive gardens on either hand, plantations of trees, broad 
fields under cultivation, and all the way the air was full of 
the odor of flowers, blossoms of lemon and orange. In luxu- 
riance and riant vegetation, it seemed an Oriental paradise. 
And the whole of this beautiful land of verdure, covered now 
with plantations so valuable, was a sand-desert as late as 1869. 
The water of the Nile alone has changed the desert into a 
garden. 

On the way we passed the race-course belonging to the 
Khedive, an observatory, and the old palace of Abbas Pasha, 
now in process of demolition, the foundations being bad, like 
his own. It is said that the favorite wife of this haled tyrant, 
who was a Bedawee girl of rank, always preferred to live on 
the desert, and in a tent rather than a palace. Here at any 
rate, on the sand, lived Abbas Pasha, in hourly fear of assassin- 
ation by his enemies. It was not difficult to conjure up the 



THE "IIOL Y FAMIL V" AGAIN. 455 



cowering figure, hiding in the recesses of this lonely palace, 
listening for the sound of horses' hoofs coming on the city- 
road, and ready to mount a swift dromedary, which was kept 
saddled night and day in the stable, and flee into the desert 
for Bedaween protection. 

At Matareeh, we turned into a garden to visit the famous 
Sycamore tree, under which the Virgin sat to rest, in the time 
of the flight of the Holy Family. It is a large, scrubby- 
looking tree, probably two hundred years old. I wonder that 
it does not give up the ghost, for every inch of its bark, even 
to the small limbs, is cut with names. The Copt, who owns 
it, to prevent its destruction, has put a fence about it ; and that 
also is covered all over. I looked in vain for the name of 
"Joseph": but could find it neither on the fence nor on the 
tree. 

At Heliopolis one can work up any number of reflections ; but 
all he can see is the obelisk, which is sunken somewhat in the 
ground. It is more correct, however, to say that the ground about 
it, and the whole site of the former town and Temple of the Sun, 
have risen many feet since the beginning of the Christian Era. 
This is the oldest obelisk in Egypt, and bears the cartouche of 
Amenemhe I., the successor of Osirtasen I. — about three thousand 
B. c, according to Mariette ; Wilkinson and Mariette are only 
one thousand years apart, on this date of this monument. The 
wasps or bees have filled up the lettering on one side, and given 
it the appearance of being plastered with mud. There was no 
place for us to sit down and meditate, and having stood, sur- 
rounded by a swarm of the latest children of the sun, and 
looked at the remains as long as etiquette required, without a 
single historical tremor, we mounted and rode joyfully city-ward 
between the lemon hedges. 

In this Spring-time, late in the afternoon, the fashionable drive 
out the Shoobra road, under the arches of sycamore trees, is 
more thronged than in winter even. Handsome carriages appear 
and now and then a pair of blooded Arab horses. There are 
two lines of vehicles extending for a mile or so, the one going 
out and the other returning, and the round of the promenade 



456 THE SHOOBRA PALACE. 

continues long enough for everybody to see everybody. Conspic- 
uous always are the neat two-horse cabriolets, lined with gay silks 
and belonging to the royal harem ; outriders are in advance, 
and eunuchs behind, and within each are two fair and painted Cir- 
cassians, shining in their thin white veils, looking from the 
windows, eager to see the world, and not averse to be seen by it. 
The veil has become with them, as it is in Constantinople, a mere 
pretext and a heightener of beauty. We saw by chance one day 
some of these birds of paradise abroad in the'Shoobra Garden — 
and live to speak of it. 

The Shoobra palace and its harem, hidden by a high wall, 
were built by Mohammed Ali ; he also laid out the celebrated 
garden ; and the establishment was in his day no doubt the 
handsomest in the East. The garden is still rich in rare trees, 
fruit-trees native and exotic, shrubs, and flowers, but fallen into 
a too-common Oriental decay. Instead of keeping up this fine 
place the Khedive builds a new one. These Oriental despots 
erect costly and showy palaces, in a manner that invites decay, 
and their successors build new ones, as people get new suits of 
clothes instead of wearing the garments of their fathers. 

In the midst of the garden is a singular summer-palace, built 
upon terraces and hidden by trees; but the great attraction is 
the immense Kiosk, the most characteristic Oriental building I 
have seen, and a very good specimen of the costly and yet cheap 
magnificence of the Orient. It is a large square pavilion, the 
center of which is a little lake, but large enough for boats, and 
it has an orchestral platform in the middle ; the verandah about 
this is supported on marble pillars and has a highly-decorated 
ceiling ; carvings in marble abound ; and in the corners are 
apartments decorated in the height of barbaric splendor. 

The pipes are still in place which conveyed gas to every corner 
and outline of this bizarre edifice. I should like to have seen it 
illuminated on a summer night when the air was heavy with the 
garden perfumes. I should like to have seen it then thronged 
with the dark-eyed girls of the North, in their fleecy splendors of 
drapery, sailing like water-nymphs in these fairy boats, flashing 
their diamonds in the mirror of this pool, dancing down the 



FORBIDDEN LOOKS. 457 



marble floor to the music of soft drums and flutes that beat from 
the orchestral platform hidden by the water-lilies. Such a 
vision is not permitted to an infidel. But on such a night old 
Mohammed Ali might have been excused if he thought he was 
already in El Genneh, in the company of the girls of Paradise, 
" whose eyes will be very large and entirely black, and whose 
stature will be proportioned to that of the men, which will be the 
height of a tall palm-tree, or about sixty feet " ; and that he was 
entertained in " a tent erected for him of pearls, jacinths, and 
emeralds, of a very large extent." 

While we were lounging in this place of melancholy gaiety, 
which in the sunlight bears something the aspect of a tawdry 
watering-place when the season is over, several harem carriages 
drove to the entrance : but the eunuchs seeing that unbelievers 
were in the kiosk would not permit the ladies to descend, and 
the cortege went on and disappeared in the shrubbery. The 
attendants invited us to leave. While we were still near the 
kiosk the carriages came round again, and the ladies began to 
alight. The attendants in the garden were now quite beside 
themselves, and endeavored to keep our eyes from beholding, 
and to hustle us down a side-path. 

It was in vain that we said to them that we were not afraid, 
that we were accustomed to see ladies walk in gardens, and that 
it couldn't possibly harm us. They persisted in misunderstand- 
ing us, and piteously begged us to turn away and flee. The 
ladies were already out of the carriages, veils withdrawn, and 
beginning to enjoy rural life in the garden. They seemed to 
have no more fear than we. The horses of the out-riders were 
led down our path ; superb animals, and we stopped to admire 
them. The harem ladies, rather over-dressed for a promenade, 
were in full attire of soft silks, blue and pink, in delicate shades, 
and really made a pretty appearance amid the green. It seemed 
impossible that it could be wrong to look at them. The atten- 
dants couldn't deny that the horses were beautiful, but they 
regarded our admiration of them as inopportune. They seemed 
to fear we might look under, or over, or around the horses, 
towards that forbidden sight by the kiosk. It was useless for 



458 



UN COM FOR TA BLE G UA RDIANS. 



US to enquire the age and the breed of the horses. Our efforts to 
gain information only added to the agony of the gardeners. 
They wrung their hands, they tried to face us about, they ran 
hither and thither, and it was not till we were out of sight of the 
odalisques that they recovered any calmness and began to cull 
flowers for us, and to produce some Yusef Effendis, as a sign of 
amity and willingness to accept a few piastres. 

The last day of March has come. It is time to depart. Even 
the harem will soon be going out of town. We have remained 
in the city long enough to imbibe its atmosphere ; not long 
enough to wear out its strangeness, nor to become familiar with 
all objects of interest. And we pack our trunks with reluctance, 
in the belief that we are leaving the most thoroughly Oriental and 
interesting city in all the East. 




CHAPTER XXXVI. 



BY THE RED SEA, 



A GENTLEMAN started from Cairo a few days before us, 
with the avowed purpose of following in the track of the 
Children of Israel and viewing the exact point where they 
crossed the Red Sea. I have no doubt that he was successful. 
So many routes have been laid out for the Children across the 
Isthmus, that one can scarcely fail to fall into one of them. 
Our purpose was merely to see Suez and the famous Sea, and the 
great canal of M. Lesseps ; not doubting, however, that when 
we looked over the ground we should decide where the Exodus 
must have taken place. 

The old direct railway to Suez is abandoned ; the present route 
is by Zagazeeg and Ismailia — a tedious journey, requiring a day. 
The ride is wearisome, for the country is flat and presents nothing 
new to one familiar with Egyptian landscapes. The first part of 
the journey is, however, enlivened by the company of the canal 
of Fresh Water, and by the bright verdure of the plain which the 
canal produces. And this luxuriant vegetation continues until 
you come to the still unreclaimed desert of the Land of Goshen. 
Now that water can be supplied it only needs people to make 
this Land as fat as it was in the days of the Israelites. 

Some twenty miles from Cairo we pass near the so-called 
Mound of the Jew, believed to be the ruins of the city of Orion 
and the temple built by the high priest Onias in the reign of 
Ptolemy Philometer and Cleopatra, as described by Josephus. 
The temple was after the style of that at Jerusalem. This 
Jewish settlement was made upon old Egyptian ruins; in 1870 

459 



460 ANOTHER TEMPLE. 



the remains of a splendid temple of the time of Rameses II. were 
laid open. The special interest to Biblical scholars of this 
Jewish colony here, which multiplied itself and spread over con- 
siderable territory, is that its establishment fulfilled a prophesy 
of Isaiah (xix, 19, etc.); and Onias urged this prophesy, in his 
letter to the Ptolemy, asking permission to purge the remains of 
the heathen temple in the name of Heliopolis and to erect there 
a temple to Almighty God. Ptolemy and Cleopatra replied that 
they wondered Onias should desire to build a temple in a place 
so unclean and so full of sacred animals, but since Isaiah fore- 
told it, he had leave to do so. We saw nothing of this ancient 
and once flourishing seat of Jewish enterprise, save some sharp 
mounds in the distance. 

Nor did we see more of the more famous city of Bubastis, 
where was the temple to Pasht, the cat or lioness-headed deity 
(whom Herodotus called Diana), the avenger of crimes. Accord- 
ing to Herodotus, all the cats of Egypt were embalmed and 
buried in Bubastis. This city was the residence of the Pharaoh 
Sheshonk I. (the Shishak of the Bible) who sacked Jerusalem, 
and it was at that time the capital of Egypt. It was from 
here, on the Bubastic (or Pelusiac) branch of the Nile, that the 
ancient canal was dug to connect with the Heroopolite Gulf 
(now the Bitter Lakes), the northernmost arm of the Red Sea at 
that date ; and the city was then, by that fresh-water canal, on 
the water-way between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. 
But before the Christian era the Red Sea had retired to about 
its present limit (the Bitter Lake being cut off from it), and the 
Bubastic branch of the Nile was nearly dried up. Bubastis and 
all this region are now fed by the canal which leaves the Nile at 
Cairo and runs to Ismailia, and thence to Suez. It is a startling 
thought that all this portion of the Delta, east, and south, and 
the Isthmus depend for life upon the keeper of the gate of the 
canal at Cairo. If we were to leave the train here and stumble 
about in the mounds of Bubastis, we should find only fragments 
of walls, blocks of granite, and a few sculptures. 

At the Zagazeeg station, whese thereisajunction with the Alex- 
andria and Cairo main line, we wait some time, and find very 



WHERE DID THE ISRAELITES CROSS? 4G1 



pleasant the garden and the picturesque refreshment-house in 
which our minds are suddenly diverted from ancient Egypt by a 
large display of East Indian and Japanese curiosities on sale. 

From this we follow, substantially, the route of the canal, 
running by villages and fertile districts, and again on the desert's 
edge. We come upon no traces of the Israelites until we reach 
Masamah, which is supposed to be the site of Rameses, one of 
the treasure-cities mentioned in the Bible, and the probable 
starting-point of the Jews in their flight. This is about the center 
of the Land of Goshen, and Rameses may have been the chief 
city of the district. 

If I knew exactly the route the Israelites took, I should not 
dare to disclose it ; for this has become, I do not know why, 
a tender subject. But it seems to me that if the Jews were 
assembled here from the Delta for a start, a very natural way 
of exit would have been down the Wadee to the head of the 
Heroopolite Gulf, the route of the present and the ancient 
canal. And if it shooald be ascertained beyond a doubt that 
Sethi I. built as well as planned such a canal, the argument 
of probability would be greatly strengthened that Moses led 
his vast host along the canal. Any dragoman to-day, desiring 
to cross the Isthmus and be beyond pursuit as soon as possi- 
ble, supposing the condition of the country now as it was at 
the time of the Exodus, would strike for the shortest line* 
And it is reasonable to suppose that Moses would lead his 
charge to a point where the crossing of the sea, or one of its 
arms, was more feasible than it is anywhere below Suez; 
unless we are to start with the supposition that Moses 
expected a miracle, and led the Jews to a spot where, appar- 
ently, escape for them was hopeless if the Egyptian pursued. 
It is believed that at the time of the Exodus there was a 
communication between the Red Sea and the Bitter Lakes 
— formerly called Heroopolite Gulf — which it was the effort 
of many rulers to keep open by a canal. Very anciently, it 
is evident, the Red Sea extended to and included these lakes ; 
and it is not improbable that, in the time of Moses, the water 
was, by certain winds, forced up to the north into these lakes j 



462 ^^ SIGHT OF THE BITTER LAKES. 

and again, that, crossings could easily be made, the wind 
being favorable, at several points between what is now Suez 
and the head of the Bitter Lakes. Many scholars make Cha- 
loof, about twelve miles above Suez the point of passage. 

We only touch the outskirts of Ismailia in going on to 
Suez. Below, we pass the extensive plantation and garden 
of the Khedive, in which he has over fifty thousand young 
trees in a nursery. This spot would be absolute desert but for 
the Nile-water let in upon it. All day our astonishment has 
increased at the irrigation projects of the Viceroy, and his 
herculean efforts to reclaim a vast land of desert; the enlarging 
©f the Sweet-Water Canal, and the gigantic experiments in 
arboriculture and agriculture. 

We noticed that the Egyptian laborers at work with the wheel- 
barrows (instead of the baskets formerly used by them) on the 
enlargement of the canal, were under French contractors, for 
the most part. The men are paid from a franc to a franc and a 
quarter per day ; but they told us that it was very difficult to 
get laborers, so many men being drafted for the army. 

At dark we come in sight of the Bitter Lakes, through which 
the canal is dredged ; we can see vessels of various sorts and 
steamers moving across them in one line ; and we see nothing 
more until we reach Suez. The train stops "at nowhere," in 
the sand, outside the town. It is the only train of the day, but 
there are neither carriages nor donkeys in waiting. There is an 
air about the station of not caring whether anyone comes or 
not. We walk a mile to the hotel, which stands close to the 
sea, with nothing but a person's good sense to prevent his 
walking off the platform into the water. In the night the water 
looked like the sand, and it was only by accident that we did 
not step off into it ; however, it turned out to be only a couple 
of feet deep. 

The hotel, which I suppose is rather Indian than Egyptian, is 
built round a pleasant court ; corridors and latticed doors 
are suggestive of hot nights; the servants and waiters are all 
Hindoos ; we have come suddenly in contact with another type 
of Oriental life. 



APPROACHING THE RED SEA. 463 

Coming down from Ismailia, a friend who was with us had no 
ticket. It was a case beyond the conductor's experience ; he 
utterly refused backsheesh and he insisted on having a ticket. 
At last he accepted ten francs and went away. Looking in the 
official guide we found that the fare was nine francs and a 
quarter. The conductor, thinking he had opened a guileless 
source of supply, soon returned and demanded two francs more. 
My friend countermined him by asking the return of the seventy- 
five centimes overpaid. An amusing pantomime ensued. At 
length the conductor lowered his demand to one franc, and, not 
getting that, he begged for backsheesh. I was sorry to have 
my high ideal of a railway-conductor, formed in America, 
lowered in this manner. 

We are impatient above all things for a sight of the Red Sea. 
But in the brilliant starlight, all that appears is smooth water 
and a soft picture of vessels at anchor or aground looming up in 
the night. Suez, seen by early daylight, is a scattered city of 
some ten thousand inhabitants, too modern and too cheap in 
its buildings to be interesting. There is only a little section of 
it, where we find native bazaars, twisting streets, overhanging 
balconies, and latticed windows. It lies on a sand peninsula, 
and the sand-drifts close all about it, ready to lick it up, if the 
canal of fresh water should fail. 

The only elevation near is a large mound, which may be the 
site of the fort of ancient Clysma, or Gholzim as it was after- 
wards called — the city believed to be the predecessor of Suez. 
Upon this mound an American has built, and presented to the 
Khedive, a sort of chdlet of wood— the whole transported from 
America ready-made, one of those white, painfully unpicturesque 
things with two little gables at the end, for which our country is 
justly distinguished. Cheap. But then it is of wood, and wood 
is one of the dearest things in Egypt. I only hope the fashion 
of it may not spread in this land of grace. 

It was a delightful morning, the wind west and fresh. From 
this hillock we commanded one of the most interesting prospects 
in the world. We looked over the whole desert-flat on which 
lies the little town, and which is pierced by an arm of the Gulf 



464 FAITH AND FACTS. 

that narrows into the Suez canal ; we looked upon two miles of 
curved causeway which runs down to the docks and the anchor- 
ing place of the steam-vessels — there cluster the dry-docks, the 
dredges, the canal-offices, and just beyond the shipping lay; in 
the distance we saw the Red Sea, like a long lake, deep-green 
or deep-blue, according to the light, and very sparkling; to the 
right was the reddish limestone range called Gebel Attaka — a 
continuation of the Mokattam; on the left there was a great 
sweep of desert, and far off — one hundred and twenty miles as 
the crow flies — the broken Sinai range of mountains, in which 
we tried to believe we could distinguish the sacred peak itself. 

I asked an intelligent railway official, a Moslem, who acted as 
guide that morning, 

"What is the local opinion as to the place where the Children 
of Israel crossed over? " 

"The French," he replied, " are trying to make it out that it 
was at Chaloof, about twenty miles above here, where there is 
little water. But we think it was at a point twenty miles 
below here ; we must put it there, or there wouldn't be any 
miracle. You see that point, away to the right 1 That's the 
spot. There is a wady comes down the side." 

"But where do the Christians think the crossing was.? " 

"Oh, here at Suez; there, about at this end of Gebel Attaka." 

The Moslems' faith in the miraculous deliverance is disturbed 
by no speculations. Instead of trying to explain the miracle by 
the use of natural causes, and seeking for a crossing where the 
water might at one time have been heaped and at another 
forced away by the winds, their only care is to fix the passage 
where the miracle would be most striking. 

After breakfast and preparations to visit Moses' Well, we 
rode down the causeway to the made land where the docks are. 
The earth dumped here by the dredging-machines (and which 
now forms solid building ground), is full of a great variety of 
small sea-shells ; the walls that enclose it are of rocks conglom- 
erate of shells. The ground all about gives evidence of salt; 
we found shallow pools evaporated so that a thick crust of 
excellent salt had formed on the bottom and at the sides. The 



THE SUEZ CANAL. 465 



water in them was of a decidedly rosy color, caused by some 
infusorial growth. The name, Red Sea, however, has nothing 
to do with this appearance, I believe. 

We looked at the pretty houses and gardens, the dry-dock 
and the shops, and the world-famous dredges, without which 
the Suez Canal would very likely never have been finished. 
These enormous machines have arms or ducts, an iron spout of 
semi-elliptical form, two hundred and thirty feet long, by means 
of which the dredger working in the center of the channel 
could discharge its contents over the bank. One of them 
removed, on an average, eighty thousand cubit yards of soil a 
month. A faint idea may be had of this gigantic work by the 
amount of excavation here, done by the dredgers, in one month, 
— two million seven hundred and sixty-three thousand cubic 
yards. M. de Lesseps says that if this soil were "laid out 
between the Arc de Triomphe and the Place de la Concorde, 
it would cover the entire length and breadth of the Champs 
Elysees, a distance equal to a mile and a quarter, and reach to 
the top of the trees on either side." 

At the pier our felucca met us and we embarked and sailed 
into the mouth of the canal. The channel leading to it is not 
wide, and is buoyed at short intervals. The mouth of the 
canal is about nine hundred feet wide and twenty-seven deep,* 
and it is guarded on the east by a long stone mole projected 
from the Asiatic shore. There is considerable ebb and flow of 
the tide in this part of the canal and as far as the Bitter Lakes, 
where it is nearly all lost in the expanse, being only slightly 
felt at Lake Timsah, from which point there is a slight uniform 
current to the Mediterranean. 

From the canal entrance we saw great ships and steamboats 
in the distance, across the desert, and apparently sailing in 
the desert ; but we did not follow them ; we turned, and 
crossed to the Asiatic shore. We had brought donkeys with 
us, and were soon mounted for a scrambling gallop of an 



* Total length of Canal, loo miles. Width of water-line, where banks 
are low, 328 feet ; in deep cuttings, 190 ; width at base, 72 ; depth, 26. 

30 



466 THE WELLS OF MOSES. 

hour and a half, down the coast, over level and hard sand, to 
Moses' Well. The air was delicious and the ride exhilar- 
ating. I tried to get from our pleasant Arab guide, who had 
a habit of closing one eye, what he thought of the place of the 
passage. 

"Where did the Children of Israel cross? " 

" Over dat mountain." 

"Yes, but where did they cross the Sea.?" 

" You know Moses "i " 

"Yes, I know Moses. Where did he cross,? " 

" Well," closing his eye very tight, " him long time ago, not 
now. He cross way down there, can't see him from here." 

On the way we passed the white tents of the Quarantine 
Station, on our right by the shore, where the caravan of 
Mecca pilgrims had been detained. We hoped to see it : 
but it had just set out on its desert march further inland. It 
was seen from Suez all day, straggling along in detachments, 
and at night camped about two miles north of the town. 
However, we found a dozen or two of the pilgrims, dirty, 
ragged, burned by the sun, and hungry, lying outside the 
enclosure at the wells. 

The Wells of Moses (or Am Moosa, " Moses' Well," in the 
Arabic) are distant a mile or more from the low shore, and 
our first warning of nearness to them was the appearance of 
some palms in a sandy depression. The attempt at vegeta- 
tion is rather sickly, and the spot is but a desolate one. It is 
the beginning of the route to Mount Sinai, however, and is 
no doubt a 'very welcome sight to returning pilgrims. Con- 
trast is everything; it is contrast with its surroundings that 
has given Damascus its renown. 

There are half a dozen of these wells, three of which are 
some fifteen to twenty feet across, and are in size and appear- 
ance very respectable frog-ponds. One of them is walled 
with masonry, evidently ancient, and two shadoofs draw 
water from it for the garden, an enclosure of an acre, fenced 
with palm-matting. It contains some palms and shrubs and 
a few vegetables. Here also is a half-deserted house, that 



A SENTIMENTAL PILGRIMAGE. 467 

may once have been a hotel and is now a miserable trattoria 
without beds. It is in charge of an Arab who lives in a hut 
at the other side of the garden, with his wife and a person 
who bore the unmistakable signs of being a mother-in-law. 
The Arab made coffee for us, and furnished us a table, on 
which we spread our luncheon under the verandah. He 
also gave us Nile-water which had been brought from Suez 
in a cask on camel-back ; and his whole charge was only one 
bob (a shilling) each. I mention the charge, because it is 
disenchanting in a spot of so much romance to pay for your 
entertainment in "bobs." 

We had come, upon what I may truly call a sentimental 
pilgrimage, on account of Moses and the Children of Israel. 
If they crossed over from Mount Attaka yonder, then this 
might be the very spot where Miriam sang the song of 
triumph. If they crossed at Chaloof, twenty miles above, as 
it is more probable they did, then this might be the Marah 
whose bitter waters Moses sweetened for the time being; the 
Arabs have a tradition that Moses brought up water here 
by striking the ground with his stick. At all events, the 
name of Moses is forever attached to this oasis, and it did not 
seem exactly right that the best well should be owned by an 
Arab who makes it the means of accumulating bobs. One 
room of the house was occupied by three Jews, traders, who 
establish themselves here a part of the year in order to buy, 
from the Bedaween, turquoise and antiquities which are 
found at Mount Sinai. I saw them sorting over a peck of 
rough and inferior turquoise, which would speedily be for- 
warded to Constantinople, Paris, and London. One of them 
sold me a small intaglio, which was no doubt of old Greek 
workmanship, and which he swore was picked up at Mount 
Sinai. There is nothing I long more to know, sometimes, 
than the history of wandering coins and intaglios which we 
see in the Orient. 

It is not easy to reckon the value of a tradition, nor of a 
traditional spot like this in which all the world feels a certain 
proprietorship. It seemed to us, however, that it would be 



468 MIRIAM OR MAR AH. 



worth while to own this famous Asiatic well ; and we asked 
the owner what he would take for it. He offered to sell the 
ranche for one hundred and fifty guineas; this, however, 
would not include the camel, — for that he wanted ten pounds 
in addition ; but it did include a young gazelle, two goats, 
a brownish-yellow dog, and a cat the color of the sand. And 
it also comprised, in the plantation, a few palms, some juni- 
pers, of the Biblical sort, the acacia or "shittah" tree of the 
Bible, and, best of all, the large shrub called the tamarisk, 
which exudes during two months in the year a sweet gummy 
substance that was the " manna " of the Israelites. 

Mother-in-law \v(5re a veil, astring of silver-gilt imitation coins, 
several large silver bracelets, and a necklace upon which was 
sewed a string of small Arabic gold coins. As this person more 
than anyone else there, represented Miriam, — not being too 
young, — we persuaded her to sell us some of the coins as 
mementoes of our visit. We could not determine, as I said, 
whether this spot is associated with Miriam or whether it is the 
Marah of bitter waters; consequently it was difficult to say what 
our emotions should be. However, we decided to let them be 
expressed by the inscription that a Frenchman had written on a 
wall of the house, which reads: — Le coeur vie palpitait conime un 
amant qui revolt sa bieji ainie'e. 

There are three other wells enclosed, but unwalled, the largest 
of which — and it has near it a sort of loggia or open shed where 
some dirty pilgrims were reposing — is an unsightly pond full of a 
green growth of algae. In this enclosure, which contains two or 
three acres, are three smaller wells, or natural springs, as they all 
are, and a considerable thicket of palms and tamarisks. The 
larger well is the stronger in taste and most bitter, containing 
more magnesia. The water in all is flat and unpleasant, and not 
enlivened by carbonic acid gas, although we saw bubbles coming 
to the surface constantly. If the spring we first visited could be 
aerated, it would not be worse to drink than many waters that 
are sought after. The donkeys liked it ; but a donkey likes any- 
thing. About these feeble plantations the sand drifts from all 
directions, and it would soon cover them but for the protecting 



RETURNING TO SUEZ. 469 

fence. The way towards Sinai winds through shifting sand- 
mounds, and is not inviting. 

The desert over which we return is dotted frequently with tufts 
of a flat-leafed, pale-green plant, which seem to thrive without 
moisture ; and in the distance this vegetation presents an 
appearance of large shrub growth, greatly relieving the barrenness 
of the sand-plain. We had some fine effects of mirage, blue lakes 
and hazy banks, as of streams afar off. When we reached an 
elevation that commanded a view of the indistinct Sinai range, 
we asked the guide to point out to us the " rosy peaks of Mount 
Sinai " which Murray sees from Suez when he is there. The 
guide refused to believe that you can see a rosy peak one hun- 
dred and twenty miles through the air, and confirmed the 
assertion of the inhabitants of Suez that Mount Sinai cannot be 
seen from there. 

On our return we overtook a caravan of Bedaween returning 
from the holy mount, armed with long rifles, spears, and huge 
swords, swinging along on their dromedaries, — a Colt's revolver 
would put the whole lot of braggarts to flight. One of them was 
a splendid specimen of manhood, and we had a chance to study 
his graceful carriage, as he ran besides us all the way; he had 
the traditional free air, a fine face and well-developed limbs, and 
his picturesque dress of light-blue and buff, somewhat in rags, 
added to his attractions. It is some solace to the traveler to 
call these fellows beggars, since he is all the time conscious that 
their natural grand manner contrasts so strongly with the un- 
couthness of his more recent and western civilization. 

Coming back into Suez, from this journey to another continent, 
we were stopped by two customs-officers, who insisted upon 
searching our lunch-basket, to see if we were attempting to 
smuggle anything from Asia. We told the guide to give the 
representative of his Highness, with our compliments, a hard- 
boiled egg, 

Suez itself has not many attractions. But we are much im- 
pressed at the hotel by the grave Hindoo waiters, who serve at 
table in a close-fitting habit, like the present extremely narrow 
gown worn by ladies, and ludicrous to our eyes accustomed to 



470 



THE COMMERCE OF THE EAST. 



the flowing robes of the Arabs. They wear also, while waiting, 
broad-brimmed, white, cork hats, slightly turned up at the rim. 
It is like being waited on by serious genii. These men also act 
as chambermaids. Their costume is Bengalee, and would not be 
at all " style " in Bombay. 

Suez is reputed a healthful place, enjoying both sea and desert 
air, free from malaria, and even in summer the heat is tempered. 
This is what the natives say. The English landlady admits that 
it is very pleasant in winter, but the summer is intensely hot, 
especially when the Khamseen, or south wind, blows — always 
three days at a time — it is hardly endurable ; the thermometer 
stands at iio° to 114'^ in the shaded halls of the hotel round the 
court. It is unsafe for foreigners to stay here more than two 
years at a time ; they are certain to have a fever or some disease 
of the liver. 

The town is very much depressed now, and has been ever since 
the opening of the canal. The great railway business fell off at 
once, all freight going by water. Hundreds of merchants, shippers 
and forwarders are out of employment. We hear the Khedive 
much blamed for his part in the canal, and people here believe 
that he regrets it. Egypt, they say, is ruined by this loss of 
trade; Suez is killed ; Alexandria is ruined beyond reparation, 
business there is entirely stagnant. What a builder and a des- 
troyer of cities has been the fluctuation of the course of the East 
India commerce ! 




CHAPTER XXXVII. 
"eastward ho! " 



WE left Suez at eight in the morning by rail, and reached 
Ismailia in four hours, the fare — to do justice to the 
conductor already named — being fourteen francs. A 
part of the way the Bitter Lakes are visible, and we can see 
where the canal channel is staked out through them. Next we 
encountered the Fresh-Water Canal, and came in view of Lake 
Timsah, through which the Suez canal also flows. This was no 
doubt once a fresh-water lake, fed by water taken from the Nile 
at Bubastis. 

Ismailia is a surprise, no matter how much you have heard of 
it. True, it has something the appearance of a rectangular 
streeted town dropped, ready-made, at a railway station on a 
western prairie ; but Ismailia was dropped by people of good 
taste. In i860 there was nothing here but desert sand, not a 
drop of water, not a speai'of vegetation. To-day you walk into 
a pretty village, of three or four thousand inhabitants, smiling 
with verdure. Trees grow along the walks ; little gardens bloom 
by every cottage. Fronting the quay Mohammed Ali, which 
extends along the broad Fresh-Water Canal, are the best residen- 
ces, and many of them have better gardens than you can find 
elsewhere, with few exceptions, in Egypt. 

The first house we were shown was that which had most 
interest for us — the Swiss-like chalet of M. de Lesseps ; a 
summerish, cheerful box, furnished simply, but adorned with 
many Oriental curiosities. The garden which surrounds it is 
rich in native and exotic plants, flowers and fruits. On this quay 

471 



472 THE LOTUS. 



are two or three barn-like, unfurnished palaces built hastily and 
cheaply by the Khedive for the entertainment of guests. The 
finest garden, however, and as interesting as any we saw in the 
East, is that belonging to M. Pierre, who has charge of the water- 
works. In this garden can be found almost all varieties of 
European and Egyptian flowers; strawberries were just ripening. 
We made inquiry here, as we had done throughout Egypt, for 
the lotus, the favorite flower of the old Egyptians, the sacred 
symbol, the mythic plant, the feeding upon which lulls the con- 
science, destroys ambition, dulls the memory of all unpleasant 
things, enervates the will, and soothes one in a sensuous enjoy- 
ment of the day to which there is no tomorrow. It seems to 
have disappeared from Egypt with the papyrus. 

The lotus of the poets I fear never existed, not even in Egypt. 
The lotus represented so frequently in the sculptures, is a 
water-plant, the Nymphcza lutea, and is I suppose the plant that 
was once common. The poor used its bulb for food in times of 
scarcity. The Indian lotus, or Nelumbiuniy is not seen in the 
sculptures, though Latin writers say it existed in Egypt. It may 
have been this that had the lethean properties; although the 
modern eaters and smokers of Indian hemp appear to be the 
legitimate descendants of the lotus-eaters of the poets. How- 
ever, the lotus whose stalks and buds gave character to a dis- 
tinct architectural style, we enquired for in vain on the Nile. 
If it still grows there it would scarcely be visible above water in 
the winter. But M. Pierre has what he supposes to be the 
ancient lotus-plant ; and his wife gave us seeds of it in the seed- 
vessel — a large flat-topped funnel-shaped receptacle, exactly the 
shape of the sprinkler of a watering-pot. Perhaps this is the 
plant that Herodotus calls a lily like a rose, the fruit of which 
is contained in a separate pod, that springs up from the root in 
form very like a wasp's nest ; in this are many berries fit to be 
eaten. 

The garden adjoins the water-works, in which two powerful 
pumping-engines raise the sweet water into a stand-pipe, and 
send it forward in iron pipes fifty miles along the Suez Canal to 
Port Said, at which port there is a reservoir that will hold three 



ISM A J LI A. 473 



days' supply. This stream of fresh water is the sole dependence 
of Port Said and all the intervening country. 

We rode out over the desert on an excellent road, lined with 
sickly acacias growing in the watered ditches, to station No 6 
on the canal. The way lies along Lake Timsah. Upon a con- 
siderable elevation, called the Heights of El Guisr, is built a 
chateau for the Khedive ; and from this you get an extensive 
view of the desert, of Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes. 
Below us was the deep cutting of the Canal. El Guisr is the 
highest point in the Isthmus, an elevated plateau six miles across 
and some sixty-five feet above the level of the sea. The famous 
gardens that flourished here during the progress of the excava- 
tion have entirly disappeared with the cessation of the water from 
Ismailia. While we were there an East India bound steamboat 
moved slowly up the canal, creating, of course, waves along the 
banks, but washing them very little, for the speed is limited to 
five miles an hour. 

Although the back streets'of Ismailia are crude and unpic- 
turesque, the whole effect of the town is pleasing; and it enjoys 
a climate that must commend it to invalids. It is dry, free from 
dust, and even in summer not too warm, for there is a breeze 
from the lakes by day, and the nights are always cooled by the 
desert air. Sea-bathing can be enjoyed there the year round. 
It ought to be a wholesome spot, for there is nothing in sight 
around it but sand and salt-water. The invalid who should go 
there would probably die shortly of ennui, but he would escape 
the death expected from his disease. But Ismailia is well worth 
seeing. The miracle wrought here by a slender stream of water 
from the distant Nile, is worthy the consideration of those who 
have the solution of the problem of making fertile our western 
sand-deserts. 

We ate at Suez and Ismailia what we had not tasted for several 
months — excellent fish. The fish of the Nile are nearly as good as 
a New-England sucker, grown in a muddy mill-pond. I saw 
fishermen angling in the salt canal at Ismailia, and the fish are 
good the whole length of it; they are of excellent quality even in 
the Bitter Lakes, which are much Salter than the Mediterranean 



4:74: THE GREA T HIGH W A Y. 

— in fact the bottom of these lakes is encrusted with salt. 

We took passage towards evening on the daily Egyptian 
pocket-boat for Port Said — a puffing little cigar-box of a vessel, 
hardly fifty feet long. The only accommodation for passengers 
was in the forward cabin, which is about the size of an omnibus, 
and into it were crammed twenty passengers, Greeks, Jews, Koor- 
landers, English clergymen, and American travelers, and the 
surly Egyptian mail-agent, who occupied a great deal of room, 
and insisted on having the windows closed. Some of us tried 
perching on the scrap of a deck, hanging our legs over the side; 
but it was bitterly cold and a strong wind drove us below. In 
the cabin the air was utterly vile ; and when we succeded in 
opening the hatchway for a moment, the draught chilled us to 
the bones. 

I do not mean to complain of all this; but I want it to 
appear that sailing on the Suez Canal, especially at night, is 
not a pleasure-excursion. It might be more endurable by 
day ; but I do not know. In the hours we had of daylight, I 
became excessively weary of looking at the steep sand-slopes 
between which we sailed, and of hoping that every turn 
would bring us to a spot where we could see over the bank. 

At eight o'clock we stopped at Katanah for supper, and I 
climbed the bank to see if I could obtain any information 
about the Children of Israel. They are said to have crossed 
here. This is the highest point of the low hills which 
separate Lake Menzaleh from the interior lakes. Along this 
ridge is still the caravan-route between Egypt and Syria; it 
has been, for ages unnumbered, the great highway of com- 
merce and of conquest. This way Thothmes III., the greatest 
of the Pharaohs and the real Sesostris, led his legions into 
Asia; and this way Cambyses came to repay the visit with 
interest. 

It was so dark that I could see little, but I had a historic 
sense of all this stir and movement, of the passage of armies 
laden with spoils, and of caravans from Nineveh and Damas- 
cus. And, although it was my first visit to the place, it 
seemed strange to see here a restaurant, and waiters hurrying 



PORT SAID. 475 



about, and travelers snatching a hasty meal in the night on 
this wind-blown sand-hill. And to feel that the stream of 
travel is no more along this divide but across it! By the 
half-light I could distinguish some Bedaween loitering about ; 
their little caravan had camped here, for they find it very 
convenient to draw water from the iron pipes. 

It was quite dark when we presently sailed into Lake Menza- 
leh, and we could see little. I only know that we held a straight 
course through it for some thirty miles to Port Said. In the 
daytime you can see a dreary expanse of morass and lake, a 
few little islands clad with tamarisks, and flocks of aquatic 
birds floating in the water or drawn up on the sand-spits in 
martial array — the white spoonbill, the scarlet flamingo, the 
pink pelican. It was one o'clock in the morning when we 
saw the Pharos of Port Said and sailed into the basin, amid 
many lights. 

Port Said was made out of nothing, and it is pretty good. 
A town of eight to ten thousand inhabitants, with docks, 
quays, squares, streets, shops, mosques, hospitals, public build- 
ings ; in front of our hotel is a garden and public square ; all 
this fed by the iron pipe and the pump at Ismailia — without 
this there is no fresh water nearer than Damietta. It is a 
shabby city, and just now has the over-done appearance of 
one of our own western town inflations. But its history is 
a record of one of the most astonishing achievements of any 
age. Before there could be any town here it was necessary 
to build a standpoint for it with a dredging machine. 

Along this coast from Damietta to the gulf of Pelusium, 
where once emptied the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, is a 
narrow strip of sand, separating the Mediterranean from 
Lake Menzaleh ; a high sea often breaks over it. It would 
have saved much in distance to have carried the canal to the 
Pelusium gulf, but the Mediterranean is shallow there many 
miles from shore. The spot on which Port Said now stands 
was selected for the entrance of the canal, because it was here 
that the land can be best approached — the Mediterranean 
having sufficient depth at only two miles from the shore. Here, 



4:76 EMBARKING. 



therefore, the dredgers began to work. The lake was dredged 
for interior basins; the strip of sand was cut through; the 
outer harbor was dredged ; and the dredgings made the 
land for the town. Artificial stone was then manufactured 
on the spot, and of this the long walls, running out into the 
sea and protecting the harbor, the quays, and the lighthouses 
were built. We saw enormous blocks of this composite of 
sand and hydraulic lime, which weigh twenty-five tons each. 

It is impossible not to respect a city built by such heroic 
labor as this ; but we saw enough of it in half a day. The 
shops are many, and the signs are in many languages, Greek 
being most frequent. I was pleased to read an honest one in 
English — "Blood-Letting and Tooth-picking." I have no 
doubt they all would take your blood. In the streets are 
vagabonds, adventurers, merchants, travelers, of all nations; 
and yet you would not call the streets picturesque. Every- 
thing is strangely modernized and made uninteresting. There 
is, besides, no sense of permanence here. The trades appear 
to occupy their shops as if they were booths for the day. It 
is a place of transit ; a spot of sand amid the waters. I have 
never been in any locality that seemed to me so nearly 
nowhere. A spot for an African bird to light on a moment 
on his way to Asia. But the world flows through here. 
Here lie the great vessels in the Eastern trade ; all the Medi- 
terranean steamers call here. 

The Erymanthe is taking in her last freight, and it is time 
for us to go on board. Abd-el-Atti has arrived with the 
baggage from Cairo. He has the air of one with an import- 
ant errand. In the hotels, on the street, in the steamer, his 
manner is that of one who precedes an imposing embassy. 
He likes state. If he had been born under the Pharaohs he 
would have been the bearer of the flabellum before the king ; 
and he would have carried it majestically, with perhaps a 
humorous twinkle in his eye for some comrade by the way. 
Ahman Abdallah, the faithful, is with him. He it was who 
made and brought us the early morning coffee to-day, — 
recalling the peace of those days on the Nile which now are 



^P/?5 



Q \ 



FAREWELL TO EGYPT. 



477 



in the dim past. It is ages ago since we were hunting m the 
ruins of Abydus for the tomb of Osiris. It was m another 
life, that delicious winter in Nubia, those weeks following 
weeks, free from care and from all the restlessness of this 
drivino" ag-e. . . 

"I shouldn't wonder if you were right, Abd-el-Atti, in not 
wanting to start for Syria sooner. It was very cold on the 

boat last night." ^ j i,- i.„j 

"Not go in Syria before April; always find him bad. 
'Member what I say when it rain in Cairo?-' This go to be 
snow in Jerusalem.' It been snow there last week, awful 
storm, nobody go on the road, travelers all stop, not get any- 
where. So I hunderstand." 

"What is the prospect for landing at Jaffa tomorrow 

morning?" , i. .^ » 

" Do' know, be sure. We hope for the better. 
We get away beyond the breakwater, as the sun goes down. 

The wind freshens, and short waves hector the long sea swell. 

Egypt lies low ; it is only a line ; it fades from view. 



